CH_8.17 (282)

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Maruboshi was as far removed from his prime as one could be and required ample warmup to get his body to react to his commands with combat sharpness. He stretched his body in the middle of a dirt field after sunrise, feeling the tension in each of his muscles.

He looked across from him at Takuma, who was stretching absentmindedly. The last time they sparred was before Takuma's deployment, when his growth had plateaued because of his busy schedule in the Police Force. Now that he had gone through a war, Maruboshi wondered how much he had changed. There was a lot of free time at the camp, and if he knew his student, he wouldn't have let it go to waste.

"I see you've brought weighted gear," said Maruboshi. A complete set of weighted gear sat under a tree at the edge of the field. They used to be popular a few decades ago but had fallen out of favour among shinobi.

Still, he liked them because they made for simple yet effective all-day training gear.

"I have an imbalance between my physical and spiritual energies. I wore a set for a few months to grow my physical energy. I didn't take them to Yu, so I've fallen out of the habit, but I'm getting back into it, and this set is much heavier than the one I used at the camp," said Takuma as he stretched down to grab his ankles.

"The quality of chakra, of course. I had entirely forgotten about it," Maruboshi said, impressed that Takuma was mindful of such a concept. Chakra was a mixture of two energies, and an imbalance between them affected the quality of the chakra. Lower quality chakra meant a shinobi had to use more chakra to adequately wield jutsu.

"It can't be helped; you are far too old to be concerned with the imbalance."

A person's physical energy reserves naturally decline as part of the ageing process, thus creating an imbalance between the two energies. It became a severe problem for shinobi in their forties; they could theoretically keep the two energies balanced by rigorous and regular physical training if they hadn't already hit their genetic limit for maximum physical energy, but it was all but impossible to stop an imbalance in the fifties and, after that, it was like a boulder rolling downhill.

"That is true," Maruboshi sighed. He hadn't been concerned with chakra quality for a long time and genuinely forgot about it until Takuma brought it up. "Nevertheless, I'm impressed that you're trying to achieve balance, Takuma. Not many people try to improve the quality of their chakra."

Just like Takuma had plateaued during his Police Force days, most people didn't have or want to spend the time required (or didn't want to spend time) to correct their energy balance, and, more often than not, they considered working on their jutsu to be a more worthy use of their time. However, ignoring the imbalance usually created a rift that couldn't be bridged.

"Don't put them on now. I want to see what you can do without the weights," Maruboshi said to Takuma as he walked to the weighted gear.

"What are the restrictions?" asked Takuma as he left the weighted gear behind.

"None. Use everything you can."

"Very well," Takuma said, immediately dashing toward him, attempting to catch him off guard.

Maruboshi smiled as he crossed his arms to form a guard as Takuma laid out a haymaker to start them off. A vigorous force assaulted his arms, and he felt the chakra reach his bones; Takuma's chakra augmentation had become significantly more potent.

"Your control has improved," Maruboshi commented as he stepped away and pulled his torso back to avoid a kick aimed at his head. Before he left, Takuma was experimenting with spreading the expunged chakra over a larger area to create a lighter effect, or going in the opposite direction, and concentrating the chakra into a smaller spot to focus all the damage into that area.

The two of them leaned into the knife fight, kunai against kunai, their blades moving at a blurring speed, cutting through the air and sparking with each clash. Takuma was in constant motion, assaulting Maruboshi everywhere, from his head to his legs and coming at him from left and right.

Maruboshi, partially owing to his prosthetic leg, didn't move around much compared to Takuma, but was still deceptively agile and fast for his age. His footwork was simpler, but he either met or slipped past all the strikes effortlessly, using his experience to forecast Takuma's moves.

He's gotten more aggressive yet again, Maruboshi observed as he quickly slapped away another augmented punch. Takuma's fighting style always felt like he wanted to get it done quickly—but now it was just being... reckless.

It wasn't a direction of growth Maruboshi felt excited about.

He decided to prod Takuma to see how he would react, leaving an opening for him to target, and as expected, Takuma immediately attacked. Maruboshi struck out with a palm strike. When the blow caught him, Maruboshi expected him to switch to defence, but instead, Takuma moved his body to minimise the damage and committed to exploiting the opening.

The two of them hit each other within a split second and were thrown back. Maruboshi felt the chakra slam into his body, jolting his bones as the force spread through his body. He locked in on Takuma, thinking he would rush in, but he was forming hand seals instead to stabilise from Maruboshi's strike.

Within seconds, a thickening mist descended over the field. Maruboshi chased after Takuma while he could still see him, but Takuma vanished using the Body Flicker Jutsu, vanishing into the descending fog.

He's trying to win, thought Maruboshi. In their various spars over the years, Takuma had only used the Hidden Mist Jutsu a couple of times because their spars were an opportunity for Takuma to try things out and get advice from the mist obscured everything, he couldn't give pointers about things he couldn't see.

The sound of rushing water closed in on him, and Maruboshi tried to roll away but was hit in the back by Takuma's Water Release: Wild Water Wave. It was much stronger than before. He felt an ache spread through his lower back and wanted to jump away to gather himself when he remembered Takuma's combat habits.

Just as he thought, the water on the ground flew up to supply water for the Water Release: Eight Tentacles. The ground beneath his feet cracked as he shot toward the retreating water and found a startled Takuma. Maruboshi kicked him in the chest, sending him flying away. All the gathered water crashed to the ground, forming various puddles, big and were natural; they were inevitable. The challenge in battle was to ensure people didn't recognise one's habits, which was what combat tells were.

Maruboshi charged after Takuma through the mist, but when he looked around, Takuma was missing. There was no use trying to use his vision in the fog, and he hadn't trained his ears like Takuma had, but Maruboshi possessed other methods to make his way through the mist.

He weaved hand seals for the Earth Release: Earth Tremor Sense Jutsu and pressed his hands on the ground for a wave of earth chakra to pulse through the ground. It was a jutsu that he and Takuma had in common in their arsenal, which used seismic vibrations to locate any creature in contact with the ground.

The vibrations returned to him, and he knew Takuma's position.

"Smart move," he muttered with a smile.

Maruboshi turned back to where Takuma had lost control of the water after getting kicked. Takuma was right there, undoubtedly forming the water tentacles. Maruboshi didn't rush and walked back to the spot with kunai in both hands.

"Hmm?"

The sound of crackling made him halt. He recognised it as possibly coming from a Lightning ninjutsu, but Takuma had a poor aptitude for Lightning. Before he could finish the thought, a bluish light poked through the mist's cover, and Takuma appeared flying in with eight lightning-charged tentacles flared behind his back.

Maruboshi capped his physical abilities when he sparred with Takuma to make the fight fair, but at that moment, he moved as fast as he could to evade four electrified coming for him. Takuma didn't ease up on the pressure and threw the kunai at such a frightening speed that he was taken aback and dodged at an even higher speed than before.

The moment Takuma's feet touched the ground, he pushed even more, with all eight tentacles writhing like starved beasts hunting their next meals. Maruboshi weaved among a barrage of tentacles that looked more menacing than ever.

His student had formed a combination ninjutsu, a feat that most failed to achieve because of various complex factors—and that's why he knew that getting touched by the tentacles wasn't going to be a pleasant experience. Maruboshi returned his agility to what he considered fair sparring standards and, for the first time in their years of sparring, he reached for his back and pulled out his sword. Opposite him, the electrified tentacles cast a light on Takuma's face, and his eyes widened in surprise.

A single pulse of chakra coated the sword as Maruboshi clasped the sword's worn-down yet comfortable grip. His aged eyes took a picture of the tentacles before him; he calculated a selection of sword swings and unleashed them just as he imagined. The sword moved so fast that all eight tentacles split so close to each other in time that it looked like they were cut at the exact same moment.

The lightning inside the water clung to the sword's metal, and Maruboshi expunged it from the blade with another pulse of chakra. Takuma dug his soles into the ground and backed off as the tentacles lost the majority of their water mass and the lightning within them rapidly faded—but it was Maruboshi's turn to go on offence.

"Takuma… you have undoubtedly improved," he smiled.

He closed the distance in one quick step, giving Takuma just enough time to convert his eight short tentacles to four full-length ones. Maruboshi tried to cut them off, but Takuma pulled them back, opening his torso to attack, from the dull side of Maruboshi's blade.

Takuma threw a punch, leaving him confused because the blow wasn't going to reach him, but then something rippled out from his fist and struck Maruboshi in the face. It didn't injure him, but left him dazed. If it was someone at Takuma's level, getting out with a broken nose would've been lucky.

At that same moment, the four tentacles wrapped around Maruboshi's limbs, trying to knock him off balance, but before they could tighten their grasp, Maruboshi pulled free. There was a second lull during which the two observed each other. Both had used something they hadn't shown the other before.

A new form of augmentation? Maruboshi thought, gaining a new level of appreciation for how Takuma had incorporated his self-made chakra augmentation into his combat style. It had gone from something he could barely use to a bonafide technique.

Maruboshi readied his sword as Takuma moved first, and when he took his first step, Maruboshi's vision turned hazy and blurry, with colours mixing into each, rendering him unable to see anything. He saw Takuma's clothes dissipate into the surroundings and immediately jumped back.

The ground began to merge with everything else, and he feared for his footing, scared that he would trip. He had worn his prosthetic leg almost as long as his real one but suddenly, after decades of not thinking about it, he missed his real leg.

He was going to fall.

His life as a shinobi had all but ended when he lost his leg, but he had somehow managed to keep it alive. However, he realised that he was a fool to believe he had recovered because when it mattered the most, his body always fail him.

A wave of chakra pumped through Maruboshi's body and shattered the genjutsu with Takuma's fist inches before his chest. He caught the fist before it could connect and absorbed its tremendous force with his hand, spinning and transferring all of it into a throw.

Takuma flew over his shoulder, slamming into the ground before sitting up to Maruboshi's sword against his throat. "...That was exemplary, Takuma," Maruboshi sighed as he put his sword on Takuma's neck. His other hand stroked his prosthetic leg. "However, I must say that genjutsu was… unpleasant, to say the least, but quite effective."

"...I noticed," Takuma replied, accepting the hand up.

They looked at each other, repositioned, and got ready for round two.

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