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Izumi was impressed as she vigilantly scanned the dense mist surrounding her from every direction. She couldn't see anything past arm's reach; even her chakra vision was essentially being blocked by the chakra bound to the suspended mist.
She now knew why Takuma chose to exert himself in the last round. He was counting on the Water Release: Hidden Mist Jutsu to control their encounters. He could come and go at will, controlling the pace of the battle. He must have something to help him navigate the obscuring mists, she thought and wondered if the proceeding rounds would be fought in the mist.
It made sense because if he fought her out in the open, he'd be at a disadvantage. Not that it was likely to happen, since they weren't using B-rank jutsu, that was unlikely to happen unless they got into a contest to see who could throw more volume of jutsu at each other.
Izumi made sure to move around. Takuma could emerge from beneath her feet at any moment, and standing still was an encouragement to do so.
What about genjutsu? He learned under Mikoto, but perhaps that's why he hadn't used it yet, because she was aware of it. Awareness was tricky in the context of genjutsu; it could either improve or worsen the situation depending on the person.
Of course, she could keep walking in one direction until she reached the boundary of the mist, but that wouldn't be conducive to the spar. If she didn't like the mist, she had to get rid of it instead of avoiding it.
Her steps shifted into agile footwork as she swung her kunai, parrying the other blade as it entered her field of vision. She had no time to stop as more came at her from different directions.
It was the tentacle jutsu again. A smart choice. He possessed the skill to treat them like extra limbs, with plenty of experience on how to use them in combat effectively, making them a formidable weapon. When fused with the Lightning Release ninjutsu, it was an outright dangerous combination.
Izumi reckoned the jutsu was a headache for others. Unfortunately for him, her eyes had already seen through his habits—movement patterns, range, usage preferences, control boundaries—and thus could now handle them better than the last round. It had taken longer to figure out because they weren't exactly human anatomy.
How unfortunate, she thought.
The tentacle's length allowed him to stay just out of the mist's reduced visual range; as long as he was smart about it, he could remain completely hidden, making him harder to hit. Furthermore, the translucent tentacles themselves were harder to see in the mist. They were two jutsu with great compatibility, which was why it was so unfortunate that she could see them with clarity.
The Sharingan could see the rough flow of chakra in both bodies and ninjutsu. The density of the chakra holding the tentacle's shape was much higher than that of the suspended mist, making them quite visible to her eyes. If it were another type of ninjutsu, like a single-charge attack, it wouldn't have mattered because the attack would've been over after they did their deed, but his tentacles stuck around, becoming visible every time they entered her visual range.
Even if she couldn't see him, she might as well know his location by determining it based on the tentacles; they were attached to him. She parried and deflected four kunai-bearing tentacles in quick succession to create space that she stepped into before front-kicking him, catching him on the chest. She followed with a blind kunai throw. His grunt was audible in the silence of the mist, unsure if the blade had cut its mark.
A few moments later, he attacked from another direction. The tentacles came in first, but she could tell that they were feints, which meant he was coming in himself. His hazy outline became visible with alarming speed, aiming to deny her any chance to react. However, one look was enough to know that she only needed to concern herself with his left leg, which was shining brighter than the rest of his body.
He had an augmentation loaded in there.
Chakra gathered in parts of the body for various reasons. It happened every time a jutsu was used. She couldn't tell what the chakra was going to be used for, but when he swung his arm or thrust his knee, it provided enough context that he wanted to break her bones with an augmentation.
For that reason, she hadn't been hit by any of the seven augmented strikes he had tried on her in the fifth round. The augmented kick in front of her was no different. She effortlessly ducked under while blocking the follow-up knee to her face with her palms, stepping out of the way when he tried to stab her, only to vanish into the mist before the tentacles could reach her.
Ten seconds later, her eyes widened when she saw a water bullet cut through the air in her direction, followed by two more—one of which missed entirely. Even in her enhanced perception, they were moving dangerously fast. Her hands moved at full speed to cut with kunai. She twisted her body to reduce the surface area in the direction of the bullets before throwing herself to the ground. More bullets flew over her head until there was silence.
That was yet another dangerous jutsu to use in mist.
Lying on the ground, she weaved hand seals and let her chakra flutter out in the form of strong but heavy winds that pushed the mist outward before settling into a final radius, where it continued to flow, keeping the mist thin.
Wind Release: Sweep Flow
It wasn't aggressive enough to vanish everything, not by a long shot. He was generous with chakra, expanding its size, but the mist around her thinned to a point where she could see a decent distance ahead—including his location. He seemed visibly displeased by her action.
She got up, patted the dust off, and gazed at him. The Sharingan was much more than just the eyes. When she had the dōjutsu active, her mind worked differently; everything she had ever seen with the Sharingan was available at her fingertips to use. She remembered every moment of the fifth round, every detail of his movements.
It was time to experiment.
She already had a half-decent understanding of her style, thanks to him exerting himself, making him move faster, and leading him to show her more. However, she didn't have the foundation to mimic his style completely; she lacked his strength or a melee option that could be summoned as flexibly or quickly as his chakra augmentations.
She ran towards him, her thoughts coming with solutions.
Usually, she'd let him have the first move, but this time, she targeted the first opening she saw. Instead of waiting for the next opportunity while protecting herself, Izumi continued to attack until she created another opportunity. She couldn't copy his aggression, but she could apply similar pressure through sheer speed.
Her movements changed from a smooth flowing wind to chaos. When he tried to fall back into thickened mist pockets, she stuck to him. When that failed, he tried to constrict her movements with his tentacles to make space, but reading them was growing easier by the minute.
She hit him four more times in the span of ten seconds.
Her tactic shifted as she implemented a common style originating from the Hidden Cloud, which she had been taught by Mikoto, who had copied it from a Cloud shinobi. She ran around him, hitting every opportunity she got—it wasn't easy because he was still a danger and got in hits through sheer tenacity—and used some of them to repeatedly target his right pelvis, causing him to adjust his guard and tentacles.
It was a false target; her real aim was somewhere else.
She waited patiently until his guard had drifted low enough to throw in a feint to the pelvis before turning it into a kick to the jaw. Izumi didn't have his augmentation, but she was still a taijutsu fighter and her hits, at the very least, hurt.
For a moment, the tentacles hovered around him, frazzled, but she didn't target the opening. Instead, she weaved hand seals and set her leg aflame. She appeared next to him, and he was ready as he attacked her.
It wasn't an augmented strike, so she took it. He smashed a fist into her collarbone, but she endured it and instead used that moment to smash her flaming leg into her chin once again, doing more damage to the same spot. He was stunned because it was the first time she had so willingly traded damage—it literally wasn't her style, but that's exactly why it worked.
Takuma was an observant opponent; he was going to pick up some of her quirks as well.
The trick was to know the right timing.
A minute later, she sent in a cylinder of wind from Wind Release: Vortex Thrust as he would use his mid-ranged augmentation, once again hitting him in the same spot—taking revenge for hitting her twice in the same spot—before laying down a spinning kick to the pelvis just when he thought that she was going back there.
Soon, the round came to an end.
———
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The next three rounds were the same. Regardless of what Takuma did, hitting her only became increasingly difficult as the fight wore on. While she figured him out with the Sharingan, his powers of observation couldn't keep up because she was making changes to how she was fighting.
He realised it too late, but he hadn't managed a single augmented hit past the fourth round. Likely because she could see those hits coming now, but the fact that he couldn't make it work with his level of skill and experience was humiliating.
Watching the gap widen between them in real time was… disheartening, to say the least.
His jaw was partially numb from the number of times it had been hit. Regardless of what he did, she found a way to get to it, and if he put too much focus on his jaw, she would just punish him in other places.
Just as Mikoto had claimed, Izumi has trounced him. When was the last time he had lost this hard? The Academy? Had nothing changed since then?
"Takuma, here."
He was sitting on the ground with his head hung when Izumi tossed him an extra water canteen. Her eyes had reverted to the Uchiha onyx, and it made her look kinder. In fact, her entire vibe was softer than when they were sparring.
"Thank you," he said, doing his best to sound normal.
"So, what's next? When are we meeting?" she asked.
"Pardon?"
"My calendar is free right now, but it might fill up soon, so let's block in a slot now. When works for you?"
He stared at her in surprise. He didn't think she would want to do this again. The only reason she had agreed was because Mikoto had asked her. Maybe it would've made sense if he had presented a competition, but after his performance in the back half, he didn't think she would gain anything from sparring him.
As things stood, it probably felt like a waste of time to her.
"Takuma?" she said as he stared.
"Have you forgotten why we're doing this?" Mikoto came in from behind and combed her fingers through his hair. "You're supposed to eliminate flaws and find better options. By the next session, reflect on these spars and identify your areas for improvement. She's going to attack them next time as well. You'd better have an answer by then. In fact, forget about the next spar with him. You're going to have a lesson with me before that, I want to see results… You know how I work, right?"
When he was still visiting daily during lunch breaks, she would test him every Friday. There was no concrete criterion as long as he had learned something new or improved by the next week. It didn't matter if it was tiny as long as it was something.
He gave her a nod before looking at Izumi.
"Please choose a time that best suits you. I'll adjust my schedule accordingly."
He hadn't liked what had happened today; he wasn't going to like it moving forward, but if they were serious in wanting to help him, then he was going to give it his best. This was nothing compared to what lay in the future.
If he let something like a spar get to him, how would he go on to survive what was to come? It was going to be difficult, but Takuma wasn't a stranger to hard times.
———
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"…How many times do you think he'll come?" Izumi asked as she walked home with Mikoto after the spar.
"He'll come as long as you do," she replied.
"Really?" Izumi said, but her dull expression conveyed her doubt.
Mikoto sighed. What happened today wasn't uncommon in any way. Most people who sparred against Izumi lost just as badly; they arranged for another session, but when the result didn't change—in fact, when the results worsened—people stopped asking her for spars or made excuses when she invited them.
Even people in the Uchiha clan, those with the Sharingan, found it difficult to spar with her. She understood her student's plight because she had gone through the same in her youth. It was difficult to see an Uchiha to steal their whole style, but it was a nightmare when someone relentlessly attacked their weakness and blocked their strengths every second of the fight.
"Other than the fundamentals, Takuma didn't learn how to fight from anyone," she said.
People like Mikoto and Izumi had received training since they were young, where they were methodically taught right and wrong, had best practices explained to them, and were thoroughly instructed in their clan's combat style. They were guided and challenged with scenarios to instil experience through education.
"What he learned has come from experience. From pure trial-and-error. He's the fast sort who grasps lessons after being taught once. He'll eventually get to a point where he irons out the wrinkles in his style, but he will make mistakes throughout—and those mistakes come with losses. Takuma isn't someone who will get upset because he lost once."
Izumi recalled the boy who had only ever lost during the academy spars. It was true that he was used to losing. But that boy was the last-place student of their class, while the one who fought her today was a young, talented chūnin of the Hidden Leaf.
"And you shouldn't discount him just yet," Mikoto said with a faraway look, remembering a memory. "What he showed you today was by no means his best. He's a type who performs better in live combat. Things wouldn't've been as easy if this sparring match were a no-time-limit, single round."
Of course, what Izumi showed, too, was not her everything. What she demonstrated was what every Uchiha with a Sharingan who was worthy of his eyes could do. Mikoto's way of using the Sharingan was far more frightening. Izumi, who hadn't perfected it, was terrifying in her own right. Sparring with her was going to be a huge boon for him, but he was going to thoroughly suffer before he reaped the benefits.
"You'll eventually have to fight with B-rank ninjutsu. If your eyes are the focal point of your style, his true strength comes together when he's using one of his B-rank ninjutsu," Mikoto said.
Quite adorably, Takuma had rushed to Mikoto's house to show her his first offensive B-rank jutsu when he had finally managed to learn and use it properly. The marks of what he could do still marred the edge of a training field in the form of a landslide after he had punched an elevation in the ground.
"He fights differently with the B-rank jutsu?"
"Not at all."
It was pure and simple power, and that's what made it so much more intimidating.
Izumi looked interested.
"But are you sure you're comfortable with sparring with him as many times as necessary?" Mikoto asked.
Izumi nodded. "He introduced me to you, and it frankly changed my life. The least I can do is to help. If this is what it takes to return the favour, I'd be more than happy to spar with him as much as he wants. And I want us to be better friends, so this is the perfect situation for that."
"That's probably good for him as well. He works too much," Mikoto said, laughing.
"I wonder what I should do next time? I didn't use genjutsu; maybe I'll challenge that skill next. What do you think, Teacher?" Izumi herself was someone interested in combat; if not, she wouldn't have made a good student for Mikoto.
She laughed behind her hand. "I think he'll love it. You should definitely try genjutsu on him."
"I think I will!" Izumi said, oblivious to Mikoto's growing laughter.
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The link is in the synopsis!