Want to read ahead of schedule? Head over to Patreón @
[ https://www̧̧.patreón.com/fictiononlyreader ]
The link is also in the synopsis
———
.
Thinking a clone would be the perfect teammate was a mistake. Unlike the twins, who probably spent years working together, Takuma never trained for team combat with his clones. They rarely shared a common goal and instead divided responsibility between them, such as work and training, and went their separate ways.
He was not Naruto. His combat style wasn't built around working together with clones. In fact, the only time he had his clones work together was on tedious office work.
'What should I do?' Takuma thought. It was only speculation on his part, but if the twins could use combination ninjutsu at B-rank, then he was in grave danger because he had nothing to protect himself against the destructiveness of that level.
He glanced up at the sky and thought about the barrier that had gone up earlier. He didn't know what kind of barrier it was, and if it was meant to keep him inside or the commotion from escaping outside. Their location itself was a training field—commotion was more or less expected. Unless the entire field were set on fire, people wouldn't think much of whatever they did.
Escape was an option, but he didn't want to let the opportunity go to waste. Killing Kon was a non-negotiable, but he couldn't let the twins leave either, nor would they let him kill the bastard. Capturing them alive didn't seem like an option for him, but as long as he could kill them, it would be another big blow to ROOT.
…As for the ones who erected the barrier, he would think about it if he were in a condition to do so afterwards.
He glanced at his arms. The aftereffects of the Lightning Release were subsiding. He returned his sword to its scabbard. He tried his best to use his sword in a fight as per Campbell's instructions and gave it his best effort, but it was time to return to his bread-and-butter.
Takuma quickly weaved hand seals, and a dense fog began to build around the area.
Water Release: Hidden Mist Jutsu.
His strategy was simple. B-rank jutsu were expensive to use. The twins had to be sure that their jutsu would hit for them to risk mixing the considerable amount of non-refundable chakra required for the jutsu. By shrouding the area with mist, the chances of them getting in a clear shot plummeted, bringing uncertainty that they would have to consider. It was also his best option to protect himself against a C-rank combination ninjutsu outside of using Earth Release: Earth Spear.
A silence descended upon the field. The fast-paced battle crawled to a halt as both sides grw wary of their unseen enemy. The mist was unforgiving on both sides. Takuma couldn't see either, and his enhanced hearing, which he had trained for operating within the mist, was entirely dependent on how much noise his opponent made.
Statistically, he was at an advantage because the other side had more people capable of making noise. At the same time, those people were trained agents who had been put through hell and back in the name of training.
Takuma thought about creating another shadow clone but decided against it. The cost was too high. It took a lot of chakra to make a shadow clone, who would then take half of what remained. He wanted to keep his reserves in one place to be ready for a B-rank jutsu.
He slowly moved through the fog, listening for footsteps, breathing, whispers, or clinks of metal, but only got an eerie silence in return.
It was also the time to see if the agents had any way to disperse the fog. Anything he would want to do within the fog would be moot if they cleared out the field.
The moment the tense silence hit the half-minute mark, Takuma weaved hand seals once more.
Earth Release: Earth Tremor Sense Jutsu
It had great synergy with Hidden Mist Jutsu because it allowed him to locate the positions of those around him, a great boon inside the near-opaque fog.
'There!'
Takuma rapidly signed the seals for Earth Release: Earth and Stone Bamboo Shoot. Instead of randomly created spikes over an area, the jutsu created spikes that all converged at a single spot. If he took out one of the agents, he could eliminate all chances of combination ninjutsu from being used against him.
No scream, whimper, or grunt echoed through the fog. Takuma clicked his tongue and weaved the hand seals for Earth Tremor Sense Jutsu again to track the agents' location.
At the same time, his surroundings on his right, just behind him, suddenly lit up as a bright light pierced through the mist's opaqueness. A moment later, another bright light burst a small distance from the previous one. A quick succession of blue-ish white lights burst all around him. He was confused for a moment before a chill went down his spine when he felt a slight itch at the back of his nape.
It was from the current in the air. He realised what the twins were trying to do.
The mist reduced visibility by blocking light, but if someone lit a bright enough light, some of it was bound to travel through, because while the smoke was thick, it wasn't a blockout curtain. The twins were using some Lightning Release ninjutsu to illuminate their surroundings in an attempt to find him.
He knew his location was found when the response from his jutsu came back.
He immediately launched himself straight up into the air a second before a sword, sparking with an electric current, swung where his head had been. He jumped high to assess his situation when Red suddenly appeared right next to him in the sky with his sword buzzing with the same kenjutsu.
Takuma only had the time to swing his fist to unleash a second form punch right into Red's injured shoulder. Red all but shrugged the hit off, but it managed to deviate his swing from its original path. Takuma grabbed the man, and they spun in the air before he threw the agent down towards his partner.
Blue didn't bother catching his partner and stepped away, ready with his sword for Takuma to come down. Takuma threw a tagged kunai at him, and because of the fog, he noticed the fluttering tag a moment too late and could only jump away at the last moment. Red, however, wasn't as lucky because while he managed to land firmly on his feet, he was blasted away by the explosion.
Takuma rushed towards Red the moment he landed on the ground. Red was more injured, making him an easier target. Though before Takuma could reach his target, he had to jump away to avoid a volley of shuriken aimed at his back.
Blue appeared directly above and swung his sword down. Takuma rolled to the side and kicked dirt at the agent's mask, who was quick enough to block it with his hand. But he'd successfully destroyed his rhythm Takuma got onto his feet and felt power fill his body as his muscles contracted and relaxed in perfect rhythm.
He moved right in without any hesitation and covered the distance between them in a single step. Blue, startled by Takuma's speed, skipped back while releasing a horizontal slash of his sword, channelling lightning. Takuma was much faster than he had been until then in the fight. He stopped on the sword's tip only a few centimetres before speeding right back up in the exact second, side-stepped into the swing's opposite direction and laid down a punch.
Blue rolled his shoulder in a defensive move when he couldn't dodge. He felt a force hammer into his body. It rang his bones and almost brought up the food he had eaten before. A blood vessel in his nose burst and coated the inside of his mask with blood. The force then travelled down his back leg and sank his foot into the ankle level.
Takuma wasn't holding back his speed or strength until then. He couldn't use it with a sword in hand. His skill with kenjutsu simply didn't allow him to pull on all of his capabilities. Taijutsu, on the other hand, was a whole different game.
Blue moved his other leg to back away, but Takuma struck it with a perfectly timed second form augmented kick, forcing the leg back to the ground. He then hit the sword hand with another second form augmented strike, throwing both his leg and hand off balance.
Takuma packed the most amount of chakra he could into his arm and moved in for the kill shot. He was going to break through the rib and rupture the heart when the sound of rushing footsteps brushed his ears. He abandoned his attack and moved to the side to avoid Red's sword.
It was at that moment that Takuma realised that both the agents had been using the same kenjutsu for most of the fight. They had barely used anything else when there had been multiple moments where other ninjutsu or kenjutsu would've been better suited for the situation.
'They are trying to preserve chakra…'
Bukijutsu were popular among shinobi because they were known to be very efficient in terms of chakra cost. Many shinobi pursued learning a weapon and jutsu associated with it because it allowed those with limited reserves to own powerful options. Kenjutsu, being a sub-category of bukijutsu, shared its characteristics and was by far the most popular
Preserving chakra wasn't anything special and was part of combat, but the way the twins were doing it was extreme—as though they were expecting another fight after this and wanted to save as much chakra as they could.
But that couldn't be it because Kon had said that they were here to kill him specifically. Now, Takuma wouldn't believe a word out of that bastard's mouth, but he had no reason to lie right now.
Which led him to consider another situation: they were going to use B-rank jutsu.
Usually, keeping enough chakra for one's strongest option was common sense, but shinobi often fell into the trap of saving chakra to a point of detriment. They would keep saving to be ready for an uncertain situation when they could've used chakra to protect themselves better or create opportunities that could've ended the fights sooner.
Those who believed in hoarding chakra until the end were the farthest from the efficient chakra users. He didn't think ROOT agents would have tendencies like that. So, it could mean one other thing: the twins were looking for an opportunity where they could nail him with something so strong that he would have a zero per cent chance of surviving it—like a B-rank combination ninjutsu.
Looking at their behaviour, he would not have found it strange if one of them was aggressively preserving chakra while the other worked to create an opportunity, but seeing both of them acting like penny-pinchers only granted his theory further credence.
And it was at that point when the temperature began to rise, causing the droplets suspended in the form of mist to return to vapour, clearing up the surroundings. Takuma glanced at Blue, who was holding up his arms with heat distortions around his hands. It was a cheap D-rank utility jutsu.
Takuma clicked his tongue. If he had pushed more chakra into the jutsu, he could've made the jutsu more resistant to being countered using heat. He reminded himself to train that type of nature and shape manipulation to make his mist more resistant.
'It's coming,' he thought. If they had a way to disperse the mist, they would've done it right at the beginning. Not doing so told him that they thought that taking him in the mist was plausible, but now that it had failed, they were getting rid of the mist.
It was clear to him now.
The next attack was going to be the final one, and if they were going to pull out their big gun, he was going to do so as well.
.
———
Chat with me and the rest of the community on our DISCORD server.
The link is in the synopsis!