Three days later
Thunder crawled over the clouds like someone dragging a chair across the sky.
Raizen Tsukihana's lungs burned as he sprinted up the slope of Training Ground Eleven for what felt like the hundredth time that morning. The hill wasn't even that steep. Month One Raizen would've sworn it was a cliff. Month Two Raizen just knew exactly how much it hurt.
Gravel slid under his sandals as he drove forward, arms pumping, lightning pulsing faint and rhythmic under his skin in time with his breath.
In—two—three.
Out—two—three.
The wind coming off the ridge tasted like rain and iron. His legs felt like lead rods jammed into his hips, but they still moved when he told them to. That counted for something.
"Pick it up, Tsukihana!" Reina's voice cut through the morning haze from a few steps ahead of him. "You're slacking!"
"Shut… up," he wheezed back, but he dug a little deeper anyway.
Reina crested the hill first, braids whipping over her shoulder, steam rising off her shoulders in the cool air. Samui came in a heartbeat later, face flushed but expression calm, cloudy mist curling around her lips as she exhaled slow and controlled.
Raizen gritted his teeth and drove through the last few strides, lurching the final meter like his legs might decide to just detach and roll away without him.
He reached the top and nearly folded, hands on his knees, breath coming in sharp pulls. For a moment all he could hear was the dull roar in his ears and the faint crackle of static from the clouds overhead.
"Time."
Raitaro's voice drifted up from the flat rock he'd claimed like a throne at the top of the slope. He was sitting cross-legged, elbows on his knees, stopwatch dangling from one hand, hair tied back in a loose knot that somehow still looked lazy.
He glanced at the numbers, then at them.
"Hm," he said. "Slightly less pathetic."
Raizen forced himself upright, rolling his shoulders back. His thighs trembled, but they didn't buckle.
Progress.
Reina was breathing hard, sweat plastering her shirt to her back, but her eyes were bright, steady. Samui's chest rose and fell quickly, beads of sweat clinging to her bangs, but she was already smoothing her breath out, inhaling through her nose, exhaling through her mouth in a thin, misting line.
Raitaro flicked the stopwatch closed with a snap.
"Again," he said.
None of them complained.
They thundered down the hill, sandals thudding against packed dirt, then looped around to start the climb again. Over and over. The rhythm settled into Raizen's bones: burn, crest, burn, crest. His thoughts blurred into the simple command of keep moving.
By the time Raitaro finally held up a hand, Raizen's shirt was soaked through, his hair stuck to his forehead, and his lungs felt like they'd been scoured with sandpaper.
"Down," Raitaro said. "Stretch. You stop moving, you seize."
They dropped where they stood. Raizen sank to the ground, sitting with his legs stretched out in front of him, toes flexed up. He leaned forward, hands reaching for his feet, hamstrings screaming as he held the stretch.
Samui settled into a butterfly stretch beside him, hands on her ankles, head bowed. Little wisps of chakra-laced mist puffed with each exhale, rising and fading in the air.
Reina crossed one leg over the other and twisted, stretching out her spine with a grimace.
Raitaro hopped down from his rock, landing lightly in front of them. The lazy air had gone; his eyes were sharp, weighing every tremor in their muscles, every hitch in their breathing.
"Month two," he said. "Week four."
Raizen felt his stomach tighten. He hadn't been counting days, but hearing it put like that made it feel real in a different way.
"You've had almost a full month of real work," Raitaro went on. "Not the kiddie-play D-ranks. Not the 'I'm such a cool academy graduate' nonsense. Actual training. Bodies are adapting. Chakra's cleaner. You're not tripping over your own feet every third punch."
Reina snorted softly. Samui's lips twitched.
Raitaro's mouth quirked, just for a second.
"But," he said, and the word dropped like a kunai, "we're not doing this for fun."
He hooked the stopwatch back on his belt and folded his arms.
"In about a month," he said, "I'm putting your names in for a C-rank."
The air seemed to flatten around them.
Raizen's stretch faltered. He straightened slowly, heart thudding faster—not from the run this time.
A C-rank.
Real danger. Real blood. Not just trash retrieval and helping old people carry groceries.
Raitaro let the silence stretch just long enough to dig in.
"If you're ready," he added. "If you're not, the mission goes to another team. And maybe they come back with a nice story to tell you."
He tilted his head.
"Or they come back as names someone chisels into a stone."
The image slammed into Raizen's mind—rows of carved names, rain on stone, incense curling in the air. Kumo's memorial slabs. The quiet way people spoke there, like the dead were sitting right behind them.
His jaw clenched.
Reina lifted her chin. "We'll be ready," she said, voice rough but steady.
Samui didn't say anything, but she straightened too, meeting Raitaro's gaze head-on.
Raizen swallowed. "Yeah," he said. "We're not losing that mission."
Raitaro studied them for a moment, then nodded once.
"Good answer," he said. "Let's find out if your bodies agree with your mouths."
He clapped his hands once.
"Up. Chakra control block."
Groans rippled through Raizen's muscles as he got to his feet. His calves protested, but when he charged chakra into his soles and pushed off toward the nearest tree, his body responded.
The trunks around the training ground were scarred from weeks of work—bark stripped in bands where feet had slipped, kunai gouges, the faint scorch marks of misfired jutsu. Raizen picked one he'd used a dozen times already and focused his chakra downward.
It flowed cleaner than it had a month ago. Less of that wild, crackling surge, more like a controlled stream. He hit the bark and stuck, sandals gripping the rough surface as chakra spread evenly across his soles.
He ran.
Up the trunk, breath pacing with each step, arms pumping, eyes tracking the line of the branch above. Beside him, another blur—Reina, teeth gritted, keeping pace with him despite the fatigue. To his left, a swirl of pale hair and quiet determination: Samui, moving a bit slower but steady, each placement careful and deliberate.
Halfway up, Raitaro's voice rang out from below.
"Don't look at the top! Look at your feet! Control what's in front of you!"
Raizen forced his eyes down. The bark blurred under him, his chakra flickering as his attention split. For a moment his right foot slipped—bark scraping raw against his toes—but he yanked his focus back, pushing chakra into the sole until it stuck again.
They reached the branch line and kicked off, flipping backwards in near-unison to land on the ground below. Raizen dropped into a crouch on impact, knees bending to absorb the force.
His legs shook. His chakra didn't.
"Again," Raitaro said.
They ran the exercise twice more, then shifted to water walking at the shallow training pond—a rectangular pool off to the side, its surface rippling with every misstep.
The first time Raizen had tried this, he'd sunk almost to his knees.
Now he stepped out, chakra spreading in a thin layer under his feet. The water dimpled, but held. Tiny arcs of static danced at the edges where his chakra met the cool surface, then vanished.
Reina wobbled once when a stray ripple hit her ankle, but corrected with a sharp exhale. Samui moved like she was built for it, chakra smooth and consistent, steps barely disturbing the pond at all.
Raitaro paced along the bank, eyes flicking from one of them to the next.
"Too much chakra, Reina—you're fighting the water. Let it carry the weight, just guide it."
"Good, Samui. That's what I want to see in a storm, not just on a calm day."
"Raizen—better. You're not trying to brute-force it anymore."
A small spark of pride flared in Raizen's chest at that. Week one, Raitaro had called his control "a drunk lightning bolt in a glass shop." This was an upgrade.
They held their positions for another minute, then Raitaro snapped his fingers.
"Off. Shake it out."
They filed back onto solid ground. Raizen rolled his ankles, feeling the ache starting to creep up his calves and into his knees. His chakra coils hummed with the steady low buzz that came after good work instead of the jagged, ragged burnout he used to hit.
Raitaro stepped back into the center of the training ground, clapped his hands once more, louder this time.
"Alright," he said. "Fun part."
He jerked his chin toward the weapons rack—spear shafts, wooden practice swords, padded staves, and Raizen's own spear resting where he'd left it that morning.
"Hydrate. Then we're doing taijutsu rotations," Raitaro said. A faint, wicked smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. "Weapons allowed."
Raizen's stomach did a small, nervous flip.
⸻
They drank, stretched, and regrouped.
"Samui vs Raizen first," Raitaro called. "Line up—I'll set you two off."
Raizen's spine straightened before he could stop it. The spear was still new in his hands—just a few days of real training—but he'd already felt how different the world looked from behind its point. Still, Samui had been drilling with a katana way longer than he'd been alive as a spearman.
He fully expected to lose.
He just refused to lose instantly.
He unsealed his wooden spear in a puff of smoke and let the familiar weight settle into his palms. Facing Samui, he grounded himself in the stance he'd been drilling until his shoulders ached.
Shoulders loose.
Right foot back.
Feet shoulder-width apart.
His rear hand slid to the butt of the shaft, his front hand found the middle. The spear tip hovered between them, aimed at Samui's centerline. From here, he could reach her long before her blade ever kissed his skin.
Samui drew her practice katana and settled into her guard—blade angled across her body, weight slightly back. Her stance still leaned naturally defensive, but after weeks under Raitaro, Raizen knew better than to think she'd hesitate to attack.
She was ready to pounce the moment she saw an opening.
Raitaro raised his hand.
"Begin!"
Samui exploded off the line, sandals biting into dirt as she sprinted straight for him. Raizen didn't freeze; he rocked his weight forward onto the balls of his feet and matched her with a half-step of his own, keeping the distance exactly where he wanted it.
If he gave that distance up, he was done.
The moment she hit the very edge of his thrusting range, he moved.
Raizen drove from his back foot, hips turning, rear hand pulling while his front hand guided. The spear snapped forward in a straight, clean line aimed at Samui's midsection.
Samui's charge stuttered. She twisted her torso, bringing her blade down to knock the spear aside with a sharp clack of wood. The impact rattled through the shaft into Raizen's arms.
He rode the recoil, yanking the spear back an instant later and resetting the line.
Don't chase the clash. Reset. Own the space.
His next thrust came a heartbeat later, this time whipping high toward her right shoulder. Samui had just finished guarding low; the sudden change of level forced her into an awkward, high-angled block. The katana caught the spearhead, but her posture was off, her weight wrong.
There.
Raizen's left hand released the shaft for just a fraction of a second. A kunai flashed into his fingers from his pouch, and he snapped it toward her with a sharp flick of his wrist.
Samui had to abandon her follow-up to twist aside, the kunai whistling past her cheek. She regained her footing quickly—of course she did—but that single broken rhythm was enough.
By the time her sandals bit back into the dirt, the spear was already coming again.
Raizen stepped with her, not away, keeping her right at the edge of his reach. The spear point pecked in short, relentless jabs—stomach, shoulder, hip, chest—never quite in a pattern, never wide enough for her to comfortably slip past. Every time her blade knocked one aside, the shaft recoiled, and the point was already sliding to threaten somewhere else.
His eyes stayed locked on her midsection, not the gleam of her sword. He watched the shift of her hips, the set of her shoulders, the tiny tells that betrayed where she was about to move.
That discipline got him his opening.
He feinted a sharp thrust straight for her throat, driving the spear up at an ugly, uncomfortable angle. Samui's body reacted before she could think; she threw her guard up high and tight, blade tilting awkwardly to keep the spearhead off her neck.
It left the rest of her wide open.
Raizen snapped the spear back, resetting it for a fraction of a second at his centerline. His back foot dug into the ground. Both hands slid down the shaft until they were only a few centimeters apart near the butt, turning the entire length of wood into one long lever.
Then he struck.
The spear shot out like a drawn arrow, the extra reach carrying the tip low, straight toward her thigh. Samui tried to hop back, but she'd committed too hard to the high guard. The spearhead sliced across her leg as she moved, a deep line blossoming red along her thigh instead of punching clean through.
She hissed and dropped back, weight shifting off the injured leg, eyes wide for a heartbeat.
First blood to the spear.
Raizen kept the point trained on her, breathing hard, heart pounding—but his stance never broke.
Raitaro cupped his hands around his mouth.
"WOOO! RAIZEN, YOU'RE ACTUALLY GETTING GOOD!"
His shout echoed off the training posts. It wasn't subtle praise, but it still hit Raizen like a jolt. Heat climbed up his neck that had nothing to do with exertion.
He hadn't expected to do this well.
But Samui wasn't done.
She pushed herself back to her feet with a tight grimace, one hand hovering near the bleeding line on her thigh. She took a slow breath in, slower breath out, forcing the pain into the background. Then she retreated just beyond his reach—one careful step, then another—until she was comfortably outside his thrust range.
And started to circle.
Her eyes never left him. Calm, calculating. Predatory.
She's drawing something up, Raizen thought, jaw tightening. Of course she is.
He'd been over this scenario with Raitaro: a cautious opponent, orbiting just outside range, refusing to give him a clean rush. There wasn't a perfect answer yet—not for him—but there was one thing he did know.
It meant they respected the spear.
They respected him.
Raizen grounded his rear foot and kept the tip tracking Samui's center mass as she moved, refusing to let the point drift. He could feel the advantage in his hands like a tangible weight. One good thrust could end this.
He took a breath, ready to press—
Samui stepped in.
It was small, just a single stride, but it carried her straight into the edge of his thrusting range. His body reacted before his brain could second-guess; Raizen drove from his back foot, hips turning, tip lancing toward her ribs.
Wood rang on wood as her katana knocked the spear aside with a sharp parry and she slipped back out again, never stopping her slow, circling prowl.
His eyes narrowed.
He yanked the spear back, re-centering the point.
"She's looking for an opening," he muttered under his breath. "I have to stop her."
Standing there and letting her watch him felt like peeling his own skin away. Every thrust, every reset, every flinch—information.
He changed his grip.
His right hand slid down to the middle of the shaft, giving him a single-handed anchor point. His left dug into his kunai pouch, fingers closing around cold steel. In one smooth motion he ripped a kunai free and snapped it toward the arc she was trying to circle into.
Samui, moving right, had to check her step as the kunai hissed through the air in front of her intended path. It clattered into the dirt, and that tiny pause was all the invitation Raizen needed.
He stepped forward hard and thrust again, spear driving straight for her midsection.
Again, her blade was there—parry, deflect, boots scuffing as she flowed back out of range and resumed her orbit. Her attention never wavered. If anything, her gaze had sharpened.
She was no longer just respecting the spear. She was dissecting it.
Raizen's grip tightened until his knuckles whitened. He sent another kunai low to her left, forcing her to pivot away from it, then chased with another thrust. Same pattern: parry, reset, circle.
Sweat trickled down his temple. His breathing stayed level, but underneath it there was a tight, crawling feeling in his chest.
I'm giving her data, he realized. Every time I do the same thing, she files it away.
The next time she came, she didn't stop.
Samui slid along the edge of his range, then suddenly kicked off, closing fast. Raizen thrust for her shoulder, trying to tag her before she could slip inside, but she was already adjusting. Her blade slapped his spear head to the side, and this time she didn't drift back out—she stepped diagonally in, right, cutting across the line of his weapon.
Her sword snapped toward his forearm.
Raizen jerked awkwardly back, throwing the shaft up between them. The block was ugly, all elbows and panic. Samui's blade veered off the wood—but she hadn't committed to the cut at all. Her weight was on her back leg already.
She feinted past the shaft and drove her boot straight into his stomach.
Air punched out of his lungs in a rough grunt as he slid back, sandals digging furrows in the dirt.
He sucked a breath in, chest burning. Somewhere behind him, Raitaro let out a low whistle.
She's reading me, Raizen thought, cold settling under the ache in his gut. That's why she kept parrying and backing off. She was seeing what I'd do first.
He could feel the danger now, looming over him. If he kept playing this game the same way, Samui would carve him up bit by bit. The only way out was to become someone she hadn't fought yet.
Raizen shifted his grip again.
His lead hand slid all the way up until it rested just under the spearhead. His rear hand moved to the center of the shaft.
The weapon suddenly felt shorter, twitchier, more responsive at the tip. He called it the choke grip. It traded reach for speed and finer control.
If she wants this range, I'll make it hurt too.
They closed at the same time.
The spear snapped out in short, vicious jabs—throat, heart-line, stomach, the tendons of Samui's lead wrist. Every thrust carried less power but far more speed, forcing her to respect the tip even up close. She gave ground in small steps, parrying and turning his attacks aside, sword constantly in motion to keep the spearhead away from anything fatal.
In return, Samui's blade hissed like a silver tongue between them, licking at his guard. She aimed for his forearms, his ribs, his thigh—anything exposed between the spear's movements. This was the distance she lived in, the spacing a katana loved: mid-range, where one slip meant a clean line of cut.
Raizen's lack of experience showed.
He kept up through raw grit and a few good instincts, but the gaps were there. Scrapes bloomed along his arms where her wooden blade nipped his guard. A shallow line across his ribs burned where he'd been a fraction too slow pulling back. He felt the sting of a cut open up on his lead forearm where his hand had strayed too close to her edge.
But he also had a pointy stick in her face.
Twice, three times, the spearhead flicked dangerously close to Samui's eyes and the bridge of her nose, making her flinch back hard. One jab skimmed the skin of her throat just enough to drag a line of red and make her cough, hand jerking her sword higher in reflex.
Those face jabs did what Raizen needed them to—they scared her. Every time the tip blurred up toward her eyes, her next step came just a little faster backward.
A few more exchanges and he'd bullied her back out toward his sweet spot. Feeling space open behind his heels again, Raizen slid his front hand back to the middle, rear hand to the butt, re-extending the spear to full length.
"Got you," he muttered, resetting into his base stance, point leveled at her chest—
"Time!" Raitaro's voice cracked across the field. "Match over."
Both of them froze where they stood, chests heaving.
Raizen held the pose for a heartbeat longer, then let the spear relax. The adrenaline high faded just enough for the sting of his cuts and the deep, dull ache in his stomach to register.
Raitaro strolled toward them, hands in his pockets, expression unreadable.
"Alright," he said. "Weapons away. Walk it off."
They sealed and sheathed in silence, then came to stand in front of him—Samui with a bleeding thigh and a bruise already darkening on her ribs, Raizen with a scraped forearm, a smarting side, and a faint red line at his throat.
Raitaro's eyes flicked over them, cataloguing everything.
"First," he said, looking at Raizen, "that was a good round."
Raizen blinked. "Felt like she kicked my lungs into my spine."
"Oh, she did," Raitaro said cheerfully. "But you also did a lot right, so enjoy that before I yank it away."
Samui snorted softly.
Raitaro ticked points off on his fingers.
"Good things," he said. "One: you're finally treating the spear like a line instead of a bat. You kept the tip mostly on her center and you didn't chase her blade. That's huge. Two: nice use of range early. You forced her to respect your circle. She didn't just rush in like an idiot—that means your presence is starting to feel dangerous. Three: those face jabs in choke grip? Mean. I approve."
Raizen couldn't stop the small curl of pride in his chest.
"Now," Raitaro said, voice shifting, "your mistakes."
There it was.
"Number one: you kept throwing kunai like you were playing fetch."
Raizen frowned. "What—?"
"You cut off her angle, sure," Raitaro said, turning a palm up. "But you didn't move with it. You throw the kunai, she pauses, you should be stepping into that pause to steal the space. Half the time you threw, then stood there waiting to see what she'd do. That's not 'controlling the battlefield.' That's decorating it."
Samui's lips twitched.
Raizen's ears burned. "Right."
"Number two," Raitaro went on, pointing at him with the same hand, "you backed up ugly the first time she got inside. That stomach kick? You earned that. Your block was all arms. No hips, no footwork. If she'd had a real blade and I wasn't here, we'd be having this talk at the memorial slab instead."
Raizen's mind flashed on stone and rain again. His throat felt tight suddenly.
Raitaro didn't soften, but his tone shifted a hair.
"When someone steps diagonally in like that," he said, "you don't just try to build a wall in front of you with your arms. You step off the line. Pivot, use the shaft like a staff, use the butt. You have two ends on that thing; start acting like it."
Raizen nodded slowly, replaying the moment in his head. If he'd slid his hands to the middle and slammed the butt into her knee or hip—
"Number three," Raitaro said, "your choke grip."
Raizen stiffened.
"Relax. It was a good decision," Raitaro said. "Switching when she got closer? Smart. You traded reach for speed and you used it to push her back. Solid instinct."
He held up three fingers, then folded one down.
"But," he said, "you never adjusted your priority. In choke, your front hand is right under the spearhead. That makes it tasty. You kept waving it in her face without respecting how close her sword was to your fingers. Hence—" he gestured to Raizen's scraped forearm "—the new fashion choice."
Raizen looked down at the red line and grimaced.
"So," Raitaro said, "lesson there: in choke grip, your first job is not 'stab everything.' It's 'protect the lead hand.' Use more small deflections, more off-line steps, then pick your moments to stab."
He turned to Samui.
"Your turn. Good things first. I like that you respected the spear's range and started orbiting instead of throwing yourself into the meat grinder. You made him show you his habits, and you didn't chase every parry. That diagonal step inside his guard into the kick? Beautiful. Textbook punishing of overreliance on a straight line."
Samui straightened a fraction, despite the blood on her thigh.
"Now your mistakes," Raitaro said. "One: after he cut your leg, you got spooked and slid back into 'watch and wait' for too long. You had him flinching. You could've pressed a bit harder—force him to deal with you instead of giving him time to think."
She nodded once, accepting it.
"Two," he added, "you started over-respecting his face jabs. Yes, the eyes are scary. Also yes, I'm not going to let him blind you in training. Learn the difference between a killing thrust and a boundary probe. Not every twitch near your nose is the end of the world."
Samui's mouth quirked. "Hard to remember when the twitch is attached to a pointy stick, sensei."
"That's why we're here instead of out there," Raitaro said, jerking his chin toward the village walls. "You two did well. You learned. Next time, Raizen—I want to see you actually step with your kunai and use the spear's butt when someone crashes in. Samui—I want to see what happens when you decide you're the one dictating the pace, not just waiting to pounce."
He let that sink in, then clapped his hands once.
"Five minutes water break," he said. "Then we swap partners. Reina gets her turn to bully the spear."
Raizen exhaled, letting his shoulders drop. His cuts stung, his stomach throbbed, and his lungs still weren't happy—but underneath all of that, something warm sat in his chest.
He'd made mistakes.
But he'd made spearman mistakes.
And now he knew what to fix.
⸻
Five minutes later, the three of them were back in the dust.
Samui stood off to the side with her thigh wrapped in a quick bandage, leaning lightly on a post but watching with sharp interest. Reina was stretching out her wrists, rolling her neck like a boxer before a fight. Raizen flexed his fingers around the spear shaft, feeling the raw places where Samui's blade had kissed him.
Raitaro planted himself between them, one hand on his hip, the other hanging loose.
"Same rules," he said. "Weapons, no chakra bursts, no aiming to cripple your teammates for life. Reina, don't try to decapitate your spear-boy. Raizen, don't try to skewer my captain."
Reina snorted. "No promises."
Raizen swallowed. "I like my head where it is, thanks."
Raitaro stepped back, raising his hand.
"Begin."
Reina didn't hesitate.
She launched forward like she'd been shot from a cannon, sand and dust kicking up under her sandals. No circling, no testing steps—just a hard, direct line that would've been suicidal against someone who didn't know how to use a spear.
Raizen had watched her all month. He'd felt that sword at his throat enough times to know better than to freeze.
He dropped straight into base stance.
Right foot back.
Feet grounded.
Rear hand at the butt, front hand at the middle.
Tip already hovering over the center of her chest.
He didn't wait for her to decide the first clash. The moment she crossed the invisible ring where his reach turned lethal, he struck.
Thrust—clean, straight, midline.
Reina's eyes narrowed. Her blade flashed, not cleanly parrying like Samui's careful deflections, but smashing the spearhead aside with a sharp, chopping cut that sent a jolt down Raizen's arms.
He absorbed the shock, letting the shaft roll with the impact instead of locking up. The spear recoiled, and he yanked it back, resetting the point.
She was still coming.
He jabbed again, faster this time, aiming low for her stomach. Reina didn't even bother a full parry. She angled her torso just enough that the thrust grazed her shirt rather than digging in, her sword flicking out only at the last second to nudge the spearhead off its line.
She's not afraid of trading, Raizen realized. She'll eat glancing blows if it means she gets what she wants.
He tried to keep his feet moving, half-stepping back, shifting his angle. The spear point snapped toward her shoulder, then her hip, then her chest as she pressed. Each time, she met it with the flat or edge of her sword, not wasting motion on big sweeps, just enough to clear the line for another stride.
Her pressure felt different from Samui's entirely. Where Samui had been quiet, probing, Reina was a constant, chipping knock against his guard, testing how much he could take.
She hit the edge of his circle and kept going.
On her third approach, she feinted a big, obvious shoulder cut that screamed parry me. Raizen started to bring the spear up to intercept—and her blade was no longer there.
Her wrist rolled. The fake high cut turned into a hard, sweeping beat across the shaft near his front hand, knocking it violently sideways.
The spear line broke for a heartbeat.
Reina stepped in.
She didn't glide like Samui; she stamped, driving her lead foot diagonally in toward his right side, throwing her whole body behind the advance. Her sword came in low for his forearm, fast and ugly.
Raizen jerked back, wrenching the shaft across his body. The block came up in time, but it was all arms again, shoulders tight, feet tangled. Wood clacked against wood, the vibration humming through his bruised forearms.
Reina hadn't committed her weight to the cut.
She was already moving into the next beat.
Her knee snapped up toward his shin. He tried to hop back, but her sandal caught him a glancing blow that sent pain spiking up his leg and knocked his stance off-center. Before he could recover, the pommel of her sword thudded into his shoulder, right where the muscles were already tired from spear drills.
He stumbled sideways, grunting, spear dipping.
Reina flowed with him, not giving him a second to breathe. Her next slash came in at his ribs, then a quick reverse cut toward his thigh. He got the shaft in the way of one, half-evaded the other. The wood caught most of the force, but the tip still dragged a burning line along his side.
Raizen's head rang. His body screamed at him to backpedal, to get out, but another part of him—the part that had watched her for weeks from the front and the back of formation—was counting.
High feint. Low cut to weapon arm. Leg. Pommel. Step back. Reset.
Again. Different angle. High forehand. Middle. Leg. Shoulder check.
She was aggressive, but there was a rhythm there.
Reina's eyes glinted. "C'mon, Tsukihana," she said between strikes. "Spear's supposed to be scary, remember?"
He didn't answer. He couldn't afford the breath.
She crashed into his circle a second time, and he knew if he tried to hold base stance here, he'd just get carved up in slow motion.
Raizen choked up.
His front hand slid up the shaft until it settled just under the spearhead. His rear hand moved to the middle, shortening the weapon in a smooth glide. The spear suddenly felt shorter, lighter at the tip—less a pike, more a long dagger on a stick.
Reina's next cut came for his shoulder. He snapped the point down and across, the shortened grip letting him slap her blade just off his line. Her follow-up thrust toward his chest met the wood a bare inch from his vest, the tip scraping and sliding as he twisted his wrists.
He stabbed back at her throat.
Reina jerked her head aside, the spearhead skimming close enough that she felt the air move. Her hair whipped, and for the first time she checked her forward momentum, boots skidding as she gave up a step.
"Better," she muttered.
They settled into a brutal, close-range rhythm.
Raizen's spear jabbed in tight arcs—throat, collarbone, heart-line, the tendons in her lead wrist. Reina's sword wove between them, parrying, deflecting, taking glancing nicks on her sleeves rather than a clean pierce. In that range, her katana sang; it snapped toward his forearms, his ribs, his thigh, every opening he left when he committed too hard to a jab.
Pain started to stack. A sharp crack across his knuckles when he misjudged the distance of a parry. A stinging blow to his thigh that made his leg want to buckle. A line of shocked nerves down his forearm where her wooden blade bit through his guard.
He tried to use sharper angles, like he'd told himself he would—sidestepping instead of just backing straight out, turning with her instead of letting her circle. It helped. Some of her cuts kissed air instead of flesh. It wasn't enough to flip the exchange, but it kept him on his feet.
And as she worked, he watched.
She likes right-side diagonals when she's happy, he thought, teeth gritted. Leads with a high cut, shifts weight to the front leg, then goes low. Always finishes with a body shot—knee, shoulder, pommel—before she pulls back.
He filed it away even as his lungs burned and his skin lit up with bruises.
She broke off for half a heartbeat, resetting her guard, chest rising and falling. Sweat clung to her braids, her sharp eyes never leaving his.
"Still standing," she said. "Not bad."
Raizen dragged in air, fingers tight on the shaft. "You hit like a cart," he managed.
"Thank you," she said, and came in again.
He knew what was coming the third time she blitzed him. Not every strike, not exactly—but the shape of it. The way she always tried to finish her chain by bullying her way through his balance, shoulder-first.
She beat aside his first jab, stepping in on his right. Her blade flicked for his forearm, then his ribs, then his thigh. He blocked two, ate one. The familiar pattern surged forward—
And this time, instead of trying to keep the spear between them in choke grip, Raizen slid both hands toward the middle.
Staff mode.
The spear's length became less about the point and more about the bar of wood in front of his body. Reina's next cut slammed into the middle of the shaft with a solid thump. The impact shuddered up his arms, but his grip was balanced, his stance grounded. He let the force turn his torso, stepping off the line instead of trying to stop her head-on.
Her sword skated off to his left.
He went right.
Reina's weight was already committed. She'd thrown herself forward expecting his usual panicked, straight-back retreat. For a fraction of a second, her flank was open—hip, ribs, the side she never worried about because most people just ran.
Raizen drove the butt of the spear into it.
The strike wasn't elegant. It didn't need to be. He twisted his hips and let the full torque of his pivot whip the butt-end into the soft meat just above her hip bone.
The thud was loud.
Reina grunted, breath punching out of her, her forward momentum wobbling. Her back foot skidded, almost slipping in the churned dirt. She stumbled, one knee dipping toward the ground—
He didn't think. He followed.
Hands still in the middle, he rolled the spear, letting the other end snap forward in a short, stabbing thrust toward her stomach. It didn't land cleanly—she got an arm in the way, sword hilt jamming against the shaft—but it still drove into her guard and shoved her another half-step back.
For the first time, Reina looked… surprised.
Her eyes flicked from the butt of his spear to his face.
"Finally," she rasped. "You remembered the stick has two ends."
Raizen's arms shook. His shoulder screamed. But there was a fierce little ember glowing hot in his chest now.
Reina reset her footing, favoring her side just a hair. There'd be a bruise there later, deep and ugly. She rolled her shoulder once, grimaced, and came in again—slower this time, less reckless, testing this new version of him.
The next exchange was messy and short. She still hit harder, still found his ribs and thigh with punishing cuts, but he made her pay for every step. The staff grip let him jam her sword aside, butt-strike her knee when she overcommitted, stab into her shoulder guard when she tried to shoulder-check him again.
Both of them were breathing hard by the time Raitaro lifted a hand.
"Time," he called. "That's enough."
Reina broke off immediately, blade dropping as she stepped back. Raizen let the spear dip, sweat dripping from his chin. His arms felt like they'd been hollowed out and filled with hot sand.
Raitaro walked toward them, eyes flicking over the new marks—Reina's darkening bruise at her side, the red welt starting on her thigh, the scrapes and raised lines along Raizen's forearms and ribs.
"Alright," he said. "Weapons away."
They sealed and sheathed, then came to stand in front of him, shoulders heaving. Samui watched from the side, arms folded, expression somewhere between sympathy and morbid curiosity.
Raitaro hooked his thumbs into his pockets.
"Reina first," he said.
She lifted her chin, still catching her breath.
"Good things," Raitaro said. "You didn't play his game. You didn't stand outside and let the spear dictate terms. You slammed his circle and made him prove he could hold it. That kind of pressure? Most genin fold right out the gate."
A ghost of a grin tugged at Reina's mouth.
"Your feints were solid. Beating his shaft instead of just the tip? Very nice. That's how you mess with a line fighter. And your combo chains in close—" he tilted his head "—nasty. Good instincts on finishing your flurries with something that breaks balance, not just cuts."
Then his tone sharpened.
"Now the stupid parts."
Reina's smile thinned.
"You got cocky once you realized you could step through his range," Raitaro said. "You kept using the same three-beat chain. High, low, leg, body. Worked the first two times. Third time, he tagged your flank hard enough I heard it from over there."
Reina's hand drifted to her side, fingers brushing the bruised spot.
"You also," he added, "forgot that a spear is not just 'the sharp end.' You treated the rest like background decoration. That's how you get a stick in the hip. Or the throat."
He jerked his chin toward Raizen.
"Next round, I expect you to respect both ends of that weapon. And mix your chains. Don't be predictable just because predictable works once."
Reina nodded, jaw tight. "Yes, sensei."
Raitaro turned his attention to Raizen.
"As for you," he said, "you survived. That's the baseline praise. Congratulations on not dying."
Raizen huffed. "Feels like I did."
"You looked like it," Raitaro agreed. "But under all that, you did some important things right."
He held up a finger.
"One: you didn't abandon base stance just because she was scary. You used your reach early, forced her to pay a tax every time she came in. Good. That's the entire point of having a spear."
Second finger.
"Two: in choke grip, you actually scared her. Those jabs to the face and throat? Those made her think twice. I like that. Just remember the lead hand is made of meat, not steel."
Raizen glanced at his scraped forearm and flexed his fingers.
"Three," Raitaro said, lifting a third finger, "you finally woke up and used staff grip instead of letting her concuss you twelve times in a row. Stepping off-line, butt-striking the hip, following with a shove—that is what I've been yelling about. That's how you stop being a rail and start being a fighter."
He folded his hand, then pointed at him with the same fingers.
"Now your mistakes. Number one: same as with Samui, you still like backing up in a straight line. Reina lives for that. Every time you retreated without an angle, you gave her exactly what she wanted. You are not a training post. Move your feet like you want to stay alive."
Raizen nodded, cheeks hot.
"Number two," Raitaro went on, "you let yourself enjoy being the underdog a little too much."
Raizen blinked. "What?"
"You heard me," Raitaro said. "You figured out her rhythm. I saw it. Your eyes changed. You clocked her little three-hit chain, and then you let her run it on you one more time before you did anything. You are not here to be impressed by how cool your teammates look beating you up. You are here to kill the rhythm the second you understand it."
Reina smothered a laugh. Samui didn't bother.
Raizen's ears burned. "…Right."
"And number three," Raitaro said, "after you drilled her in the hip with that butt strike? You should've tried to take the exchange. Even if you're tired. Even if your arms feel like wet rope. She was off-balance. That's when the spear is supposed to feel like a guillotine, not a walking stick."
He let that sit for a moment, then softened by a degree.
"But," he added, "for where you are now? That was good work. You're starting to think like a spearman instead of just a lightning idiot with a long stick."
Raizen couldn't help it; despite the bruises, despite the exhaustion, his chest warmed.
Reina rolled her shoulder again, wincing. "You swing that butt into my hip like that again, I'm taking your kneecap," she muttered.
"Fair," Raizen said, managing a tired grin. "You hit my ribs one more time, I'm charging you rent."
Samui snorted.
Raitaro clapped his hands once more.
"Alright, comedians," he said. "Sip water. Stretch. Then Reina, Samui—you two are up. Raizen, you're watching this one. You're going to tell me their habits when they're done. If you're going to be an analyst, I'm going to use that brain."
Raizen winced as he rolled his shoulder, then eased the spear down beside him and sank onto the nearest rock. His muscles ached, his skin stung, his lungs still scraped on every breath.
But his mind was humming.
New grips. New angles. New rhythms.
Spearman mistakes.
He could work with that.