CH_2.9 (040)

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"Come on, you lazy bastard, you can do it!"

Takuma yelled at the top of his lungs with his hands framing his mouth as he looked up at the wall with three people on the other side of the concrete wall. Standing alongside with him were Nenro, Ai, and Masaaki, along with another three genin from another team standing in the distance, yelling to the two genin on the wall beside Taro. There were more genin who observed, but none of them were vocal in their support.

Taro, on the wall, clicked his tongue at the sound of Takuma's voice. He glanced at his competition, both in different lanes than him— one was standing a few steps below him, while the other was barely a foot above him. He clenched his jaw, looked directly at the ground, and took a step forward that turned into a couple of quick steps until he was at the same height as the guy previously in front of him. He stepped on the brakes and used both his legs to grip the wall to stop the gravity from pulling him to the ground.

The front foot's grip proved insufficient, and it slid a few inches. His team on the ground gasped. Only the solid grip on the back foot kept Taro on the wall as he hurriedly fixed the grip and stopped himself from plummeting to the ground. Taro bent his knees, placing his hands on the wall, and tucked his head down as his shoulders rose and fell.

"Sir, that counts as a disqualification!" said Cho, a teammate of the two guys competing against Taro, to Yoshio sitting behind the crowd on his foldable chair.

"Bullshit! He's still on the wall. Are you blind?" Ai said viciously and glared at Cho threateningly.

Yoshio looked up from his newspaper to eye Ai. "I don't appreciate the crass language in front of me, Ai. Drop down and give me forty immediately, you filthy maggot," he said.

Ai growled in frustration as she got down to do her pushups. Cho looked ecstatic with glee and stuck her tongue at Ai.

Yoshio glanced up at the wall. "Taro's still on the wall; his run continues," he said to Cho's chagrin.

On the wall, Taro's competition both moved forward, immediately pushing him into third place and crossing three-quarters way down from the top.

"He's not going to make it," Masaaki bit on his thumb's nail as he stared intently at Taro. "He always falls after crossing the halfway mark."

"I believe in him," Nenro said, one hand clutching his blonde hair.

Takuma breathed out. He felt jumpy watching Taro competing on the wall. It was day nine of the tree-climbing challenge, and half the people had already made it to the top of the wall. Out of them, he, Nenro, Ai, and Masaaki had already completed the climbing down part of the challenge, leaving only Taro behind them— putting them on top as the favorites to win the tree-walking practice challenge.

But they had competition. Another team had three members who had completed the challenge and had two members attempting to successfully climb down without falling down. Making it Taro versus two others for the mission point prize.

Takuma wished he was in Taro's position. He would rather it be him in the clutch to bring the prize home than pin hopes on someone else, even if it meant he had to shoulder the blame if he failed. Unfortunately, somehow his dead-last status had betrayed him the one time he actually needed it, and now he had to watch Taro struggle on the last stretch. He could tell that today was going to be the deciding day as compared to yesterday the three had cut down their failure rate by huge margins. They were still falling but much further into their walk down.

'Why couldn't I have been dumped into a Yamanaka?' Takuma lamented. It would've been so much easier if he could've just taken control of Taro's body and won the challenge.

'You wouldn't have been able to cast the needed jutsu, you dumbass,' his voice mocking him in his head. Takuma sighed. Indeed, that would've been the scenario.

Taro got up from his crouching position and started walking, taking heavy thumping steps, moving closer to the ground. He passed the other two but didn't stop moving or even slow down and kept walking.

"Don't fall!" Takuma yelled.

A vein twitched on Taro's forehead. "You don't think I know that?!" he yelled.

"Shut up!" Ai yelled at Takuma.

Masaaki's nail biting got aggressive.

Nenro's other hand was now clutching his neck.

Taro made the bold move and started running, which was infinitely more complex. Takuma screamed inside his mind, which continued until Taro reached the bottom, stopped near the very bottom, and then smoothly stepped on the grass.

Takuma raised his hand, yelled in celebration, and jumped on Taro, with Masaaki and Ai joining the pile.

"Getuf me!" Taro waved his arms and legs on the bottom of the pile as Takuma and others laughed atop of him. After they untangled, Taro turned to Takuma and said, "I'm going to get out of Genin Corps before you. Mark that."

A comeback response formed in his mind, but Takuma chose to simply smile. He was just thrilled at the moment. The team had grabbed the number one position, which meant he was going to get his first mission points as the reward.

Yoshio relieved the flimsy-looking chair from bearing his large frame and got up. "That marks the end of the tree-walking practice challenge," he said. "I can't believe that the team with the two-time failure got first place. I fear for the future of Leaf shinobi."

Takuma didn't mind. He had gotten used to Yoshio's verbal abuse. It would feel strange if he didn't hear Yoshio berate in some way at least once every day.

Yoshio ordered them to gather up front, where he addressed everyone in his group.

"You all have been part of basic training for nearly a month now and have shown varying levels of improvement, disappointing mostly, but improvements nevertheless, and I'm sure a lot of you're feeling good about yourself," Yoshio said as he walked between the five-by-five grid of at-attention genin standing in perfect posture.

Takuma was indeed feeling good about himself. So much so that he was going to buy some of that expensive meat he saw at the butcher to make himself a scrumptious meal tonight.

"If you think you have figured it out, think again because what we were doing till now was what my grandma can do, and she's been dead twenty years," Yoshio yelled at them. "From tomorrow, we're going to do some real shinobi training, so enjoy today because you're not going to do it tomorrow."

Takuma would've rolled his eyes after hearing such threats day after day, but when the person who said it held no hesitation to beat the crap out of them for practically any offense, Takuma just couldn't ignore the threat as nothing.

"As the final tournament is a month away, and I want to win so that I can rub it in my friend's face, from tomorrow, the restrictions on sparring will be lifted," said Yoshio. Takuma moved his eyes to see if others knew what Yoshio was talking about. "From tomorrow, usage of ninjutsu and genjutsu is permitted. Weapons of your choice are now allowed. Smoke bombs and explosive tags are fair game. Anything that you think you can use to kill your opponent, bring it from tomorrow because I'm going to allow it to be used."

Yoshio's words echoed in Takuma's ears. Their spars had been restricted to taijutsu and the standard shinobi weapons like they had been in the academy. Even in his spars against Maruboshi, the rules had been the same. An unrestricted spar was unknown territory for him.

"Every spar you're going to be part of from here on out will be unrestricted, as that's what real life is like. The spars are going to teach you how to incorporate other skills into your fighting skill which I suppose for many of you is nothing but taijutsu."

Takuma raised his hand. "Sir, what if we don't know any ninjutsu other than the academy three?" he asked.

Yoshio's hearty laughter sounded sinister to Takuma. "Then you better use those mission points to buy some jutsu because I'm sure many of your friends here already have jutsu in their arsenal, prepared to be used." Yoshio came by Takuma and placed a heavy hand on his shoulder. "And I'm going to make you spar with each other every day. They're going to use those jutsu on you every chance they get, and while I'll make sure you don't die, there's only so much I can do about the pain... I'm sure you understand, right, Takuma?"

Takuma stood rigid as Yoshio's hand left his body, but he could still feel it weighing down on his shoulder. He glanced around the grid and saw the others looking at him; some had a hint of smiles on their faces. Cho had an especially nasty grin on her face.

He wasn't looking forward to tomorrow.

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"What're you going to buy?" Masaaki asked as they walked home together after training ended. Nenro and Ai had taken off together, and Takuma's place was in the opposite direction. "Are you going to buy a jutsu?"

"It doesn't make sense to save the mission points in this situation," said Takuma. "We can only get mission points if we rank number one in the weekly leaderboard, and spars are a big part of it. With ninjutsu included, competition is going to get tough; if we don't learn jutsu of our own, we're definitely going to be left behind." He was no Rock Lee who could make a career out of taijutsu— he needed supernatural weapons of destruction to help him. "And I really don't want to get thrashed in every spar... believe me, I tried that, I'm over it— not fun at all."

Plus, he was sure these new spars would hurt a lot.

In their group, not a single group had ranked number one multiple times. And while their group hadn't placed number one, they had been number two twice because of Nenro and Masaaki's sparring and because they were never messed up in the drills. With the unrestricted spars, their positioning was yet again at risk.

"I have no idea what I'm going to get," Takuma said. He didn't even know what jutsu was there in the library and if there were any good ones he could buy with his mission points. He just hoped there was some variety. "What about you?" he asked.

Masaaki shrugged. "I'll talk with Nenro and Ai... Do you want to come with us tomorrow?"

Takuma shook his head. He was going to consult with Maruboshi, the wisest person he knew, about which jutsu he should choose. It was an important choice because, with his track record, it could take anywhere from one day to two months to learn this jutsu, and if he was going to get his ass kicked into the dirt while he worked hard to learn this jutsu— so it better be good and worth the pain and effort.

Even though he could see the hard days in front of him, he couldn't help but feel excited about learning a new jutsu. This was going to be his first 'practical' jutsu— a significant addition to his toolbox that would define his combat style.

Takuma said goodbye to Masaaki before heading toward Maruboshi's home to visit his teacher, whom he hadn't seen in a month since he had started basic training.

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The link is in the synopsis!