Takuma woke up completely naked with three iryo-nin circling the bed he was lying on. He was completely naked save for the towel draped over his groin and hips. The two—presumably genin—iryo-nin were the one’s in charge of healing him, with a chunin iryo-nin giving instructions. He closed his eyes and lay still, feeling uncomfortable about having his body in the care of someone other than Sango.

He wondered how she was doing—she was probably busy at her new job. She never gave him her address, so he didn’t have a way to send her a letter. He hadn’t seen her since the day of the assassination attempt and wondered if her job took her out of the Hidden Leaf, which was why she couldn’t visit him in the hospital—or if he was misunderstanding how close they were.

She was his only iryo-nin, but he was not her only patient.

Takuma cracked his eyes open and was about to inform them that he was awake when they started to talk, so he closed his eyes and listened in on their conversation.

“I wonder how he got all these scars,” said one of the genin iryo-nin.

“Maybe he did it on his own?” the other one replied.

“You mean he carved these very obvious surgical scars into himself? The first genin scoffed and hovered a scalpel over Takuma’s body as evidence; the scars were just the right width for it. “Someone opened his chest up to get to his heart, there are scars on his side” — usually seen in lung surgery, thought Takuma— “look at this one under his chest” — liver — “scar tissue on right abdomen” — kidney — “and the cluster on his abdomen” — digestive system.

The second genin sounded uncomfortable as he said, “Earlier, I saw a long scar down the entire length of his spine… what was someone doing there?”

Every time they mentioned one of his scars, Takuma felt a spike plunge itself into his head. It was the pain that he felt every time he looked at his body in a mirror or wondered how he’d even got them. One would think that he would’ve gotten used to seeing them, but the lack of understanding made it really hard to find closure. What the hell had happened to the kid? Every time that question flashed through his mind, he was punished with searing agony.

There was a moment of silence before one of them turned to the chunin iryo-nin.

“Is there anything on his file, sir?”

The chunin stayed silent for a moment before shaking his head. “Other than the mandatory check the Leaf Military Police Force made him do, there’s nothing of note on his file.”

“There must’ve been an identifying mark section—what was on that?”

“The two scars that start from his neck, over his collarbones, extending down his upper chest,” the chunin replied, pointing at the prominent scars.

“That’s it? And they bought it?” the second genin exclaimed.

“They must’ve allowed independent check-ups.” The chunin walked to a table in the room and picked up a file. “The name of the test administrator… here it’s a… Genin Sango. Must’ve been someone who doctored the report to leave out the heavy scarring and probable operations done on his body.”

Takuma decided he’d heard enough. This was precisely why he didn’t like iryo-nin other than Sango: they pried too deeply into his life. He opened his eyes; the iryo-nin didn’t seem to notice, now engrossed with discussing his combat injuries that were more prominent than the original scars.

Cosmetic healing wasn’t Sango’s specialty.

“Focus on the burns instead of the scars,” Takuma muttered, startling all three iryo-nin. They jumped in their shoes; one of the genin even broke his iryojutsu and had to recast it quickly under the baleful eye of the chunin.

There was a heavy air of awkwardness around Takuma’s bed. He let the iryo-nin stew in it for a long, excruciating moment just because he felt like they deserved it for being so nosy.

“How’s Masumoto?” he asked. There was a curtain around his bed, blocking his view. But if he was in the medical building, Masumoto would be too.

“Exhausted,” the chunin answered flatly.

“Chakra exhaustion?”

“Yes, he over-drew on his reserves.”

Takuma cracked a smile and got comfortable in the bed as he felt the terrible migraine subside.

“So… where is he?” he asked.

The chunin gaveTakuma a longlook. “...Do I need to move one of you away into a locked room with a guard?”

“Not me,” said Takuma with a smile. It didn’t convince him, but that didn’t matter; the chunin’s words told him that Masumoto was in the same room.

Takuma wriggled his toes, tapped his fingers, and did a quick check of his body. Other than it feeling awful and heavy, which wasn’t anything new, there were no major problems.

“How long have I been out, and when will he wake up?” asked Takuma. He noticed the chunin’s look and sighed. “I just want to talk to him. Don’t worry, we won’t do anything to each other as long as we’re under your care—under your command—if that’s what you’re worried about, sir.”

The chunin narrowed his eyes and the two genin iryo-nin chose to focus their attention on healing, but their eyes darted around.

“As long as you understand,” the chunin half-smiled. “You were out for two hours. As for Masumoto, given his condition, he won’t be up by tomorrow.”

“He’ll be up in a few hours,” he said.

“Not likely,” said the chunin.

Takuma closed his eyes. Before long, he was sleeping again.

———

.

Six hours later, Masumoto opened his eyes, much earlier than the doctor’s expected time period. He squinted at the harsh light and groaned in agony from the pain in his shattered shoulder covered in hard plaster and splits to keep it stationary, along with a heavy layer of bandages.

The genin on watch sounded the alarm, and the iryo-nin were all over Masumoto, who lay there, letting them do their work. He just stared at the ceiling and answered their questions until they were done and left him alone.

“How are you feeling?”

The curtain around Masumoto’s bed was pushed aside, and Takuma walked in, rolling an IV pole with him. He was covered in a gauze with medicine for his numerous burns, and winced with every step.

“Not now, fuck off,” Masumoto closed his eyes, an annoyed expression on his face.

Takuma ignored him and pulled a chair beside his bed.

“There’s never going to be a later,” Takuma said, sitting down with a throaty groan. “Let’s talk now when there’s no one to disturb us.”

“If you’re expecting some pathetic apology, you can suck my dick,” Masumoto spat.

“Your mamma lied to you. That little knob you got is a clit, not a dick.” Takuma chuckled, obviously enjoying his win, “I actually wanted to thank you… I was having a terrible time recently, but beating the crap out of you has been massively therapeutic.”

Masumoto scoffed.

“I got my revenge, flipped your little scheme on its head, impressed a whole bunch of people—probably a jonin as well. It’s been a good day,” said Takuma. “And I got to try a bunch of shit on you that I hadn’t tried in a fight—a good practice session.”

Masumoto opened his eyes and stared at Takuma, unamused.

“Well, despite everything, you were stronger than me,” said Takuma, surprising Masumoto, “but I still defeated you, and that’s all that matters at the end of the day… I don’t know about you, but my grudge is over—but if you mess with Anko or Team-9 again, I don’t mind having a repeat of today.”

“…Don’t get cocky, boy. You were lucky today—I know it, and you for fucking sure know it,” Masumoto said with a nasty smile.

Takuma stood up and smiled down at Masumoto. “Only pathetic losers blame luck, Bishop, but I didn’t expect any better from you.”

The short yet meaningful conversation came to an end with Takuma walking away from Masumoto and running into the chunin iryo-nin.

“Told you he’d be up in hours,” said Takuma. “Tough bastard, that one.”

He crawled into his bed and his jovial front faded away as he sighed in frustration.

Bishop was right… he did get lucky.

———

.

After dinner, Anko and Kameko visited Takuma for the second time in the day. The first time, he was asleep, and they had to return without talking to him. Daiki had visited him before dinner and told them he was awake if they wanted to meet him.

They got permission from the chunin in-charge and entered the room to see Takuma sitting on his bed with a pile of scrolls on his side table with three spread open on his legs as he read another one in his hands.

“Did no one tell you that recovery is an important part of the training?” Anko clicked her tongue at Takuma. “Rest, goddammit!” She raised her fist as a threat.

“I am resting…. I’m just reading for pleasure,” said Takuma, putting down the scroll in his hand.

“And what does Genin Takuma read for pleasure?” Anko leaned to take a look. It took her a moment to process the complicated text. “Genjutsu? Huh… I didn’t know you were into it. You only know two genjutsu, right?”

“I know six, only three of them have combat utility. I use two… the third doesn’t fit me,” said Takuma. “As surprising as it may sound, genjutsu is the topic I’m the most knowledgeable about.” He was tested every Friday with the threat that if he showed no meaningful progress, Mikoto would drop him as a student. It was just as, if not more, stressful as producing results with the Narcotics Taskforce.

Takuma looked at Kameko, who seemed confused by the gaze. “What?” she asked when Takuma didn’t say anything.

“Hmm… nothing,” he shook his head.

Takuma was actually wondering if Kameko knew that he was taught by Mikoto. It wasn’t a widely known piece of information outside the Police Force, but Arisu could’ve shared it with Kameko. However, seeing that Kameko didn’t say anything, she either kept it to herself or didn’t know about it at all.

“Anyway,” Anko quickly moved on, “congratulations for beating that jackass.”

“That jackass is in the room,” Takuma whispered and requested Kameko to draw the curtains around his bed.

“So? A jackass is still a jackass!” Anko turned her head and raised her voice to the other corner of the room. She turned to Takuma. “How are you feeling? It must be good to put such a show in front of everyone. A genin beating a chunin leader—now that’s a statement, a big one.”

“The optics of it all do indeed look good for the team,” Takuma said and looked down at the scroll in his hand.

Anko stared at Takuma. “And you don’t look happy about it. Why?”

He glanced up at her and shook his head. “No, it’s not like that. I’m happy. I went to rub it in Masumoto’s face the moment he woke up. It felt good alright ... but,” Takuma pursed his lips into a thin line, “it wasn’t how I imagined it would go. I did defeat him, but it wasn’t a victory—not for me.”

“Why do you say that?” asked Kameko, confused.

“Because I didn’t take him down, he dropped on his own,” said Takuma, irritated.

“So what? It was a battle of attrition. You out-endured him,” said Anko as she and Kameko took a seat beside his bed.

“Out enduring your opponent should never be an option,” said Takuma, forcefully. It wasn’t how he was taught to fight—he wasn’t talking about Masumoto or the academy—he was talking about Ring. The philosophy was clear—take out the enemy before they took you out; there was no waiting around for the enemy to tire themselves out of the fight. And he very much agreed with Ring’s philosophy. “Stretching combat encounters is almost always a bad idea. The longer the fight, the more the chances there are for things to go south…

“That’s not how I wanted this fight to go,” he sighed.

Takuma chewed on his lip, looking at the two, wondering if he should go into it. He almost decided to not say it and end the conversation but decided to share it with the people he was trusting his back with— and despite the strange start, he liked his team.

“I noticed that he was being hasty, but there was no reason—it wasn’t like I had the upper hand or anything—and he continued making all these decisions I couldn’t figure out. I didn’t understand why he was doing it until he used that last jutsu: he was running out of chakra,” said Takuma. He noticed that the chakra cloak would frequently go dim as though Masumto was trying to converse chakra—it didn’t match up with how aggressive he was at that moment. “He probably has tiny (average) chakra reserves like his dick, and that B-rank jutsu was him trying to end the fight before he ran dry.

“When I realized that, I turned to trying to keep the fight going until he was out and could no longer fight. I had no other choice; he was that good of a fighter that I had to keep running to win,” said Takuma, displeased.

He was well aware that there was no honor in a fight. There was nothing like a dirty move in a life-or-death battle. All that mattered was defeating the enemy and come out of it alive. But Masumoto put him in a situation where Takuma had to spend all his time on the backfoot because he didn’t have any other choice. It didn’t feel good. As Masumoto said, he was lucky. He was lucky that nothing bad happened—one misstep would’ve meant Masumoto knocking him out with his absurdly powerful nintaijutsu.

“I’m sorry, Takuma, but I don’t think I see a problem,” Anko shook her head. “You forced him to use a B-rank jutsu—clearly his special weapon. He couldn’t beat you because you saw something that most would’ve missed—believe me, that takes impressive observational skills, a nimble mind to do something with those observations, and a capable body to make those thoughts into reality.”

Takuma appreciated the compliment, but he couldn’t smile and shook his head. He wasn’t really upset about the fight. He was upset about what the fight meant.

“Roughly half a year ago, I encountered a rogue chunin on a case for the Police Force,” Takuma added. “He was much stronger than Masumoto; it took eight total genin to bring that guy down… He was dangerous…. It was a valuable experience; it made me realize I had allowed myself to stagnate…”

The inception of the Narcotics Taskforce had shifted Takuma’s priorities, and he began pouring most of his time into building and growing it, which directly tied into his career in the Police Force. He still devoted enough time to training, but somewhere along the line, the focus of his training turned to maintaining form rather than improving. In his nine months at the Narcotics Taskforce before the farm raid, Takuma had only learned one new jutsu—the Body Flicker Jutsu. That was the lowest since he began enough mission points to afford more jutsu.

In that same period, the Ring fights had stopped being a challenge. 2v1 was the most Tsubura allowed, and none of them were ever ninjutsu-category fights because no ninjutsu-category fighter wanted to lose as it would hurt their inflated egos and their precious gambling odds. Soon enough, they stopped being a challenge, and Takuma one-sidedly thrashed his opponents and collected his winnings once or twice a week.

“I upped my training, but then the damned assassination attempt happened, and I couldn’t walk without a crutch for weeks. The month leading to me coming here was an absolute waste,” said Takuma. “I wasted a lot of time… and that hurt today. Masumoto’s the same type of fighter as me—primary melee range and secondary mid-range supported by ninjutsu. From the first clash, I knew he was better than me. I tried to double-team him with a water clone, but that failed as well. He only used three jutsu, Anko, but each of them changed his fighting style in a way that created more and more problems for me.”

Fire Style: Twin Tiger Fist added power, overwhelming power, and some range to his taijutsu. Fire Release: Fox Fire gave him a long-range, allowed him field control, and multiple fight-changing explosives. Finally, Fire Release: Chakra Mode turned everything up to eleven and opened so many opportunities that Takuma had to keep himself running away.

“I fought Masumoto two years ago and he beat the crap out of me. There was no way for me to win, so I didn’t take it negatively—but it was a hell of a motivator for getting stronger. I think he’s the reason why I fight like I do today… because I was so overwhelmed that I couldn’t do anything, I thought that if I could do that to others, I would win every fight.”

That was more of a Ring thing than Masumoto, but Bishop was the one who made him utterly helpless. That was when Scars’ aggressive fighting style solidified with no chance of going back. What he felt in that fight had left too prominent of an impression.

“I didn’t think I would ever get to fight him, but there was this little hope, and when I got the chance today, I jumped at it,” Takuma looked at Anko, shrugging—he didn’t have the team’s best interest on his mind then, but it was a happy coincidence. “If I hadn’t neglected my training, I could’ve gotten out of the assassination attempt without needing rehab, and that would've given me more time to improve, and I probably wouldn’t have had to wait for Masumoto to run out of chakra to defeat him.”

He lifted the genjutsu spread in his hand and threw it further down the bed in frustration. “I have been learning genjutsu for over a year and haven’t done anything with it. I know all of this theory, learned from a phenomenal jonin teacher—but it hasn’t done me any good—and I only have myself to blame.”

He had allowed himself to get comfortable. Sure, he was proud of himself for becoming the first outsider (not Uchiha or their clan allies) to get a leadership position and a team of his own in the Police Force. After shedding tears from two failed graduation tests, sweating in the Genin Corp, and bleeding in the Ring—he had made it and accomplished something substantial. But he had taken that accomplishment as an excuse to stop the pain—the stupid fucking pain that came from constantly trying to improve and getting stronger. Takuma was always aware of the dangerous future ahead of him, he clearly knew that he lived in a dangerous world and that if he wanted to survive, he needed to get stronger to improve his chances.

But Takuma didn’t enjoy the process of getting stronger.

He was tired.

He didn’t like waking up early every day to train himself until his bones hurt, then doing it again in the evening, and on top of that, spending every free movement trying to learn things that would help him as a shinobi.

He liked his cabin in the Police Force headquarters and the tiny office space given to the Narcotics Taskforce. The job was time-consuming, but at least, he had a team to rely on, trusted people who could help him make something out of the Narcotics Taskforce.

But constantly trying to get stronger and improve himself as a shinobi was lonely. He had to do it on his own without any help—even Mikoto could only guide him for five hours a week—so he was on his own.

To not feel it anymore,Takuma deceived himself. He made himself believe that leading the Narcotics Taskforce was the best he could be doing when it was not.

“Chance comes only to those who are prepared enough to grab it… I fumbled it.”

“You still defeated a chunin,” said Kameko.

Takuma scoffed. “That doesn’t mean anything. I killed a Hidden Frost chunin on my way to Camp Banana without taking a single scratch.” But he was almost killed by another one in the gold mines.

“Masumoto is a Hidden Leaf chunin,” she said. “We’re better.”

Takuma nodded, not disagreeing because it was true. The quality of shinobi of the Great Five was better than what the other smaller Hidden Villages produced but Masumoto wasn’t anything special. He had allowed Takuma to catch up to him in two years. Takuma didn’t think he was a prodigy by any means, and if Masumoto couldn’t keep ahead of him, then he was nothing out of the ordinary.

However, Masumoto was special to Takuma. He had been a major influence on his fighting style two years ago, which Takuma appreciated a whole lot.

And today, Masumoto helped him once again. There was no stopping no matter how much he hated it. He had to keep moving forward because there was no other way for him to survive.

 

 

 

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