CH_2.24 (055)

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The link is also in the synopsis.

———

.

Takuma kept his eye on Arisu as he walked onto the field among the cheers, hoots, and jeers. Arisu did the same and locked eyes with him. Takuma didn't look away and kept eye contact with the girl. It wouldn't do for him to lose the mental battle before the fight even starts.

"Takuma," Arisu spoke first. "I am amazed that you have made it this far."

He wasn't surprised and expected that response from every classmate he met. He shrugged, "I mean, it was only two fights. In fact, I'm surprised that you're in the Genin Corps. Definitely thought you'd be living it high under a jonin's teachings… it seemed I was wrong.."

Arisu narrowed her eyes.

To Takuma, Arisu, with her stoic demeanor, sharp eyes, and no-nonsense air, seemed more like an Uchiha than Izumi. But that may be because he only had Sasuke and Itachi as his image of what an Uchiha was supposed to be.

The announcer repeated his pre-fight instructions before backing away.

Arisu slowly backed away and put some distance between them. Takuma also didn't make any sudden movements and took out a kunai from the pouch wrapped around his thigh. They began to move around in a circle, keeping constant distance, gauging each other to see if the other would make the first move.

Takuma abruptly changed his course and briskly walked straight toward Arisu. With a deliberately loud grunt, he threw the kunai with as much force as he could produce. Arisu side-stepped and caught the kunai that cut through the air. She glanced at Takuma to see him now rushing towards her.

The equilibrium was broken.

From the moment she caught the kunai to the next moment she threw it back as she took another kunai that she sent in the shadow of the first, Arisu's movements were fluid as though combat was forged into her bones.

Moving more on instinct than with sense, Takuma dodged the kunai, stumbled when the second one forced him to shift his body awkwardly to avoid it, straightened up, hands high, to catch the arms that held the large dagger hissing through the air towards his skull. Arisu screamed as she tried to force the dagger tip closer to Takuma's head.

Takuma fell backward with his back on the ground and used the momentum to kick Arisu over his head. He was up the next second, and so was Arisu, who had landed on her feet with a cat's grace. Arisu slashed and stabbed with her dagger while Takuma dodged and evaded, his hands empty, not given a moment to retrieve a weapon. Arisu continued to push Takuma back with aggressive movements until she got one in.

"Argh!" Takuma gasped when a stab left a cut on the side of his forearm. He gritted his teeth, and targeting a short rest in Arisu's movements, he stomped on her foot as he headbutted her in the forehead, leaving her off balance to react in any meaningful way when she got kicked in the gut, sending her several flying feet.

Wanting to cement the momentum on his side, Takuma ran towards Arisu, and up the dagger she had dropped after being kicked. As with any shinobi, getting hit was second nature. Arisu had already shaken away most of the hit and was on her knee with her hands joined together.

It took a moment for Takuma to register that Arisu was weaving a jutsu. And then another moment to decide whether he should stop or continue onwards. He dug his heel into the dirt, but the moment he stopped, he was hit by a wall of wind that sent him flying back. He knew what this jutsu was because he had been hit by it once before. However, recognizing after the fact, was no help to him at all.

He hit the ground— head first.

Takuma hadn't felt more disoriented in his life, and he had been kicked in the head multiple times during the academy. The ground had turned gray, and everything went and came out of focus. He tried hard to concentrate, but his mind refused to obey.

But one thing on the boundary among the audience did catch his attention immediately.

'Is that…'

He didn't see Arisu flying towards him, feet first.

———

.

"Arisu hit your boy so good that he got drunk."

Yoshio clicked his tongue as he peered down at the woman beside him. She was honestly a beautiful woman with a stunning figure, regal looks, and for most measures, had a good head on her body. One probably couldn't ask for more. Only if she didn't have that crude mouth attached to her, she would be perfect.

"The fight isn't over," he said. He wanted to fight back with a witty quip, but seeing Chinatsu's girl dropkick a distracted Takuma in the chest didn't leave him with much creative freedom.

"You did a good job training your bunch, Yoshio. For them to have made it this far, it's more than enough," Chinatsu smirked when she saw a staggered Takuma barely avoid Arisu's blade. "But as it is every year, a child from a shinobi clan or family will win this year as well. Be proud, you managed to get two outsiders and the worst of the Leaf's batch to semi-finals. And one of them will even get to the finals."

Yoshio glared at Chinatsu, who shrugged with a raised brow and smile.

There was a trend in the basic training final tournament. The winner would always be with a shinobi background. Maybe it was an easier access to jutsu, or an increase in effort put after not getting picked up by a jonin, or peer pressure, or maybe it was because the civilian genin who could match were taken by jonin, while good clan/family genin remained unselected— whatever it was, probably a combination of everything and some more, the trend continued.

Yoshio removed his eye from Chinatsu and observed the fight. Takuma still struggled. Any and all momentum had completely shattered after he was thrown back the Futon jutsu. As bad as it looked, Yoshio still thought that Takuma could win. The kid had been beaten worse than this and had still won.

"Don't worry though, if you beg nicely, mamma would maybe share a portion of her winnings with you. After all, Arisu would be winning by thrashing your genin," Chinatsu winked at him with a smirk.

Yoshio ignored the crazy bitch and kept his eyes on the fight. He frowned when Arisu all but walked into Takuma's personal space without an iota of resistance. He would've broken every bone in his opponent if they strolled in like Arisu had done.

'Come on, brat. Get back into it.'

———

.

She was going to the finals, thought Arisu as she stepped close to Takuma, who didn't put any resistance.

For a second there, she was worried as the fight had progressed a bit too fast and out of her control in the start. But fortunately, Futon: Boufuu Kyouzuu no Jutsu (Wind Release: Gale Surge) had seemingly done the trick. She had casted the defensive jutsu to throw the approaching Takuma back to give her space, but she didn't think Takuma would become doozy. It seemed he had hit his head. A surprise much welcomed by her.

She kneed Takuma in the stomach. He covered his stomach and coughed spit out. He was stubborn and refused to go down. She could've ended the fight by sticking a kunai in his gut and leave him bleeding to end the fight, but the comment at the start of the fight had pissed her off.

The look from her father when she had told him that the jonin had failed her was the most distressing thing in her life. She had never seen him so disappointed. After that, everyone had a look of pity in their eyes. Even Izumi's efforts to cheer her up seemed like sharp barbs digging into her.

She didn't need to be reminded of that by the dead last.

"I might be in Genin Corp," she leaned in, whispering it into Takuma's ear, "but you're not ever going to get out of it, dead last."

Deciding that she had enough, Arisu decided to end the fight. But as she was pulling away, she felt a hot breath near her ear before she felt something wet against it, followed by something solid touching her ear. Her heart rate spiked through the roof when she felt a hauntingly clear sensation of teeth grip her ear. Shocked, she jerked her head back. Bad move as when she did that, the teeth dug harder in and Takuma pulled.

Arisu screamed from the intense ripping pain. Her hand instinctively went to her ear and when she looked at it, her palm was covered in her red. Arisu looked up at Takuma. The boy had blood on his lips, red staining around his mouth.

"Thank you for not hitting me in the head again," he said between sharp breaths that matched the rise and fall of his shoulder. "It took me a while to get my head right, it would've been tough if you had kicked it in."

"You bit my ear!" Arisu screamed at Takuma.

"Uh-huh, ripped a chunk right off," he spat, "and the taste of metal did the trick, woke me right up" Takuma said. "Sorry can't lose this fight," he gestured to the side with his chin, but Arisu didn't look. He was obviously trying to bait her into looking away. "Let's go, I'm ready for round two."

He then charged at her.

———

.

"Did he just bite her ear?" Kurenai commented in shock.

"I think he did," Gai commented, surprised as well.

Kakashi was shocked as well. He had seen many things in and out of combat, but someone biting their opponent's ear off during a fight was a first. For the first time, he felt interested in watching the fight. "Takuma, was it? While I appreciate the effort, with the beating he took, the chances of him winning are quite low," he said. "Do we know if he knows any jutsu?"

Both Gai and Kurenai shook their heads.

"I know that he's from a civilian background," said Kurenai.

"If he has gotten this far, he must've gotten mission points through the training program," Gai noted. "He must've bought a jutsu, only a fool would hoard the points."

Or there was a chance that he bought the jutsu but didn't have enough time to learn it, thought Kakashi. But he doubted that was it. D-rank jutsu were easy to learn. He had learnt his first one in less than an hour.

Takuma lunged at Arisu, but the girl holding her bleeding ear jumped multiple times to put a large distance between them before Takuma could reach her. She glared at Takuma, who started to run slowly jog towards her, and took out a finger-sized scroll from her person.

"A storage seal scroll?" Gai put his hand above his eyes as he peered at the field.

"Fuma Arisu," said Kakashi, he had picked up the name from the crowd ahead of them.

Kurenai and Gai immediately understood and looked to the field as Arisu unfurled the scroll and planted her blood-soaked thumb on to the seal for a large weapon to appear with a puff of smoke. They didn't even have to look to guess that it was the Fuma Shuriken(Wind Demon Shuriken).

Four curved blades as big as Arisu's arm attached to a large ring sat in her hand. All blades were pointing the same direction but Arisu punched the dull-side of the blades and the four blades rotated along the ring to align themselves into a cross-shape, thus assuming the traditional shuriken shape, just much more terrifying than the one that could fit on atop a palm.

Takuma stopped his run, a cautious look in his eyes as he stared at the large weapon in Arisu's hand. She wasted no time and rotated her body on her heels to generate centrifugal momentum to throw the large weapon.

Kakashi could hear the blades cutting through the air from where he sat. While not exclusive to the clan, the Fuma Shuriken had been made by the Fuma clan. The sheer size of the weapon signified its use against larger opponents or against a horde of enemies who needed to be sheared down. The Third Hokage himself was known to frequently use a straight double-edged fuma shuriken in combat.

Takuma immediately ducked below the fuma shuriken or else it would've lopped his head off. The next moment, he turned back and kept his eye on the shuriken.

"He's observant, good," Kakashi nodded in approval. Many had made a mistake of treating the fuma shuriken as nothing but a large shuriken— many of them had their heads lopped off without them knowing it.

Arisu raised her hand. A metal wire almost invisible to the eye became visible and the shuriken that was already turning and coming back, suddenly shifted and spun along a line that headed towards Takuma, who again side-stepped to avoid the large meat shredded. Arisu frowned and pursed her lips as the shuriken hit her hands, the weight causing her to take a few steps to stabilize herself.

"Not optimal in an open field like this," said Gai, shaking his head. "It would make her better to engage in close combat."

As if she could listen to him, Arisu ran towards Takuma with the fuma shuriken in her hand. She hit the blades and it began to rotate like a fan. She threw the shuriken and used the metal wires to keep it in control as if swinging a scythe on a chain. Takuma jumped away from the reach. The shuriken revolved around Arisu like the Earth did to the Sun, and she increased the leash for the shuriken to go further, farther than where Takuma was at.

"She's trying to trap him in the wire," Kurenai narrowed her eyes.

The metal wire grazed Takuma's arm and snapped him out as he jumped up to get to the other side of the wire before it could wrap around him. Arisu pulled shuriken to her and with frustrated yell, she collapsed the shuriken and pulled it apart into two parts, each having two blades— that she wielded like dual-swords by the rings, only unlike swords, she had a pair of two shuriken blades.

Seeing Arisu charge, Takuma raised his hands to weave hand seals.

Kakashi perked up. What jutsu had the ear-biting kid chosen? Which element suited him? How did the jutsu fit into his combat and how would he change it. All those thoughts went through his mind only for him to recognize the hand seals.

"Bunshin no Jutsu?"

A large puff of smoke covered the field only to be cleared away immediately to reveal two dozen or so Takuma standing in its place. It wasn't an elemental clone jutsu, or as unlikely would've been the Kage Bunshin no Jutsu(Shadow Clone Jutsu)— but the simple illusory clone.

What was this Takuma trying to do?

Arisu faltered for a second with shock and apprehension, but when her eyes went to the ground near Takumas' feet, fury returned in them, stronger than before. She roared as she sprinted towards the clones and the clones did the same, but without any sound.

From Arisu's point of view, she maybe wouldn't have been able to see it through the horde of clones blocking her view, but from Kakashi's vantage, he could see it clearly. One of the Takuma, most definitely the real one, was hanging back, only slowly walking forward— his hands joined to make another set of hand seals.

"Kakashi?" Gai spoke.

Kakashi knew what he wanted, so he stared at the hand seals. "Raiton… Shokku," he predicted.

And as Arisu swung her wide blades to cut away the clones into non-existence, the real Takuma was revealed to her. They were only a few feet apart. Takuma had his right hand up, the left holding it. Snakes of blue lightning arced around his arm, meeting to concentrate in front of his palm.

Before she could react in any meaningful way, the lightning orb turned into a bolt that zapped into her. She tried to put the fuma blades in front of her but the lightning bolt was faster and struck it in her chest.

"It's… weak?" Kurenai turned to Kakashi.

Kakashi nodded. He knew the jutsu. It was one of the firsts he had learned to cast. But the jutsu wasn't this weak. "He either hasn't practiced it much, or Raiton isn't his affinity— could be either, could be both," he said.

Takuma briskly walked towards Arisu while weaving hand seals. Another lightning zapped into Arisu's body. Takuma didn't stop and now only a couple steps away from Arisu, who had been forced to kneel, zapped another lightning bolt into her.

"But if you use a spoon enough time, it can dent the skull."

Kakashi sent his friend a look at the analogy. But it was true. Takuma's weak lightning bolts did damage, and as long as they did that, pilling up would affect the body.

Thinking about damage, Kakashi asked, "When is the finals?"

"After lunch," said Gai.

"… Isn't that bad?"

———

.

Takuma's body throbbed in a hundred different places. Arisu might not have hit in the head, but she had absolutely thrashed him everywhere else. His legs screamed at him to let off the weight but he couldn't fall just yet.

He still had to finish this fight and win another one. He couldn't rest before it was all over.

Arisu coughed and wheezed on her back as her body shook and quivered. Takuma had to give it to her that even after taking three lightning bolts to the chest, she was still holding onto her fuma blades.

"G-Give up," he said to her.

Arisu cracked open eyes and stared up at him. She weakly raised one of her fuma blade, her entire shaking badly as she did.

Takuma shook his head, "You're not going to be able to do anything with—"

The base of one of the two blades glowed and the blade detached from the ring and shot into Takuma's thigh. He screamed in pure agony as the large blade shredded his flesh and grazed the bone before it exited his body. He fell to one knee as the shock overtook him. He didn't know that the blade could turn into projectiles.

Arisu screamed through her pursed lips as she sat up and used one of the blades to prop herself. She dragged her feet towards Arisu. "Y-You… give up," she said.

Takuma felt the world go in and out of focus as he fell to the ground. His vision throbbed with his accelerated heartbeat. He truly felt like an avatar in an FPS game after they had been shot, but with the added pain, shock, and fear.

But he couldn't lose. He bit his teeth and spat, "Fuck you," and swiped kick to take out her legs.

What proceeded was an embarrassing tussle on the ground as both of them beat each other with bear fists after Takuma kicked the other fuma blade out of Arisu's hands. The deep cut in the thigh won out against the three lightning bolts as Arisu got out on top and started beating Takuma's face in with punches that lacked any and all grace.

Takuma started to feel drowsy and cold. He knew it was because he was leaking blood like a tap. He couldn't muster any strength to throw Arisu off. And as he got his face bashed in, red tainting his vision, he thrashed his hand around until he felt something that cut him. He grabbed around for it and felt a grip.

He knew what it was so he used it.

Arisu felt something thump into her body which then felt cold. It was the stabbing pain in her shoulder which told her that the first thing that she felt was a stab in her side and that her own dagger was now sticking out of her shoulder.

Takuma breathing through his mouth because his nose had stopped working pushed Arisu to the side, blood leaking out of her. He stared at the bloodied sky and tainted clouds.

Unknowing to both, the announcer had arrived near them. "Whichever one of you gets up first wins the fight. I'll give you a count of ten. If neither of you gets up, both of you lose," he said.

Takuma didn't hear anything beyond 'win the fight.' All he could feel beside pain was his heart thumping in his chest. The pain overtook his sense of touch so he didn't know when he had gotten up until he was staring down at the blurry silhouette of Arisu.

He looked at the announcer, who spoke something which sounded like gibberish to Takuma, who hoped that it was something about winning because he collapsed on the ground unconscious the very same second.

.

———

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