Naruto: The Outsider's Resolve: CH_289

Takuma didn't rush in, nor did he pause to relax. Almost getting a hit in was nothing special when Mikoto was playing around with one hand on top of restraining her to his level. Unlike spars with Maruboshi, which were essentially "simulations" where he allowed Takuma to test out moves and tactics freely and purposefully left openings to see if Takuma would notice and correctly exploit them—Mikoto was a typical spar opponent, and thus a constant source of threat and pressure.

As he thought about his next move, Mikoto looked down at her sword and scabbard before looking up at Takuma.

"You almost got one in there, Takuma," she said.

"Not at all."

"Hmm, I have gotten rusty." She gazed at him for a moment. "Do you fight like this always? It didn't seem like you were trying to trade damage."

"No, this is not how I usually fight. I was trying to mimic—no, take inspiration—from how Maruboshi-sensei fights," said Takuma, pointing his chin in his old teacher's direction. Seeing that they were conversing, he slightly relaxed and lowered his head with a sigh. "I'm too wrapped in my way of fighting; I can't see how to get out of it... so I thought, what if I tried to try what other fighters I've seen and fought do? Maybe that will expand my mind, and something will stick."

Bishop's style of layering pressure until the opponent broke. Masaaki's opportunistic, quality-over-quantity way of fighting. Maruboshi's stable footwork that he was forced to develop after losing his leg. Nenro's set-up approach with ninjutsu. Because he had built his entire style by observing others in the Ring, he knew every fighter had something they could offer him. Perhaps it was because he had risen in the Ring, where everyone fought similarly because they learned from others; he had trapped himself in the bubble. He wanted to see what he could take from shinobi, who weren't from the Ring, and break out of his bubble.

"Learning from others, is it?" she said to herself with a smile. "This isn't suitable then..." Mikoto sheathed her sword and threw it behind her; it spun in the air before stabbing the ground with the tip almost perpendicular to the surface.

She raised her arms in a defensive block and opened her legs to form a wide stance. "Come at me, Takuma. Try out what you want to take from others, and let's check if you're any good at taking," she said as she rotated her wrists.

Takuma thought she was switching to something like his spars with Maruboshi.

Mikoto took out a kunai but stayed still at her spot, so Takuma carefully shuffled toward her with four tentacles holding a kunai each. When he entered her personal space, he jolted at her with a quick sweep kick while all four tentacles moved simultaneously. The sweep was supposed to lock her legs so she couldn't move to dodge the four kunai.

Mikoto's wide stance ensured that her back leg was already out of Takuma's sweep reach. The moment Takuma's leg lifted off the ground for the sweep, she moved by pulling her front leg back. The sweep missed its mark, but the four tentacles stabbed simultaneously at different parts of her body.

While she was pulling back her leg, she bent her knees to lower her height to add half a second worth of additional travel time for the kunai before they reached her—which was enough for her to swing her kunai to parry two tentacles, twist her torso to evade the third while her empty hand smashed into the final tentacle, separating the tip; the final kunai lost all momentum and bounced harmlessly off her shoulder.

Takuma was dumbfounded by Mikoto's movements and immediately jumped away. Despite her awkward body position, Mikoto was faster and slammed a palm into his lower abdomen, sending him flying.

He crashed on his back but immediately rolled up to his feet to get ready for a counter, only to see her walking toward him. He took a breath and focused on his footwork as they came in closer—his goal was not to get hit. He made the first move and flowed into a quick chain of rolling punches for her face, but she effortlessly dodged all of them with fluid head movements.

Before Takuma could reset his hand, Mikoto moved and laid a heavy blow into his kidney. He felt a pain take root in his body as his feet left the ground for a split second. His eyes remained on Mikoto, so his breathing hitched when he saw a spinning heel kick coming for his face. His reflexes were stretched to the limit as he pulled his body down to duck under the kick the moment his feet touched the ground.

This isn't working. Takuma rolled to the side to evade a punch coming down for his face. The roll made him lose sight of Mikoto, and at that exact moment, she crouched down and took out his legs with a sweep. I need to do something different, he thought as he used the tentacles and all his four limbs to push himself away from her a second before she threw down an axe kick that cratered the ground, throwing dirt into his hair.

Mikoto's movements were fast and fluid, and there was minimal time to retaliate. The window to act was terribly difficult, and any careless attempts had seen him punished. He needed to slow her down. But how was he going to accomplish that?

Takuma's writhing tentacles came into his view as he hastily got up, and a thought light-bulbed in his mind. Tentacles and snakes were the same shape. Anko's snakes. She often used a variation of the summoning jutsu to summon snakes from her person to bind her opponent, serve as a distraction, or straight-up attack them with venom.

He took a breath and split the four tentacles into eight; now that she was no longer using her sword, he didn't need them to be as strong. They just needed to be strong enough to partially hinder her movement, and he would take care of the rest.

He ran toward her before snapping a kick at her abdomen. Mikoto took a step back and received the kick into her downward-facing palms. Half of the tentacles attacked and wrapped themselves around her arms while the other half held down her torso—essentially locking in her pace. She could force herself free from the tentacles, which weren't strong enough to immobilise her completely, but it would take a second more if she were just backing off.

I got her this time. Takuma cocked his arm as chakra flowed to his hand—but just before he could heave his punch, she head-butted him in the forehead. The augmentation fizzled away as he staggered back with a dizzy head.

Mikoto spun around once like a top, tearing away the tentacles holding him down. Takuma put his arms together to block a back fist aimed at his chest; he felt a sharp pain stab his bones as he blocked the strike. His concentration was high as he ignored the pain and focused on the next attack. The Anko snake-slash-tentacle experiment wasn't a failure; the head-butt was proof of its potential.

As she threw a cross for his head, three tentacles moved at the highest speed possible and struck her arm one after another, slowing the punch slightly. Takuma ducked under the punch. She whipped another punch from her other arm, and four tentacles merged into two before wrapping and pulling on her arm, sapping some of its power and allowing Takuma to block it without getting stunned by the pain.

It's working. He whipped a punch for her throat that whiffed as she twisted her body out of the way. Takuma gritted and followed up with a biting kick, but Mikoto ducked below it and struck him in the liver. Frustration about not connecting a single hit rose within him, and he tried to back away to formulate a new plan, but Mikoto stepped forward, keeping the distance between them.

"You're doing good, Takuma," said Mikoto before prying open his guard with two jabs before laying a chain of half a dozen strikes right into his chest and abdomen, knocking the wind out of his body. The strikes were light because they were sparring, but he would've been in real trouble if they were full strength while she was restraining her to his level.

A thought flashed past his mind as he stumbled back. He could touch her with his tentacles; he just had to make it hurt. Not only did he know how to do that, Nenro also had a similar idea, validating Takuma's ad-hoc creation.

D-rank ninjutsu had fewer hand seals. As Takuma completed the hand seals, a tentacle wrapped around his right arm. Lightning Release: Shock. The jutsu converted his chakra into chakra that flooded the water tentacles.

Eight Tentacles: Shock Mode

A fascinated smile appeared on Mikoto's face as Takuma rushed towards her. She didn't stay her ground like she had till then and moved in sync with him. She kept herself barely inside the tentacles's range as though giving him an opportunity to get her.

"This is an excellent combination," she said, her eyes tracking the charged tentacles.

The tentacles swung and swiped at Mikoto, trying just to get one touch that would shock her, but she moved around effortlessly with grace while looking at the sparking water as though it was a circus attraction. That just made Takuma want to get in a hit more—and he had a tactic that he could use to take her by surprise.

Kameko's Taketori kenjutsu had the ability to extend her sword's reach, surprising her opponents and actively making them think about her sword's true length. Takuma knew no kenjutsu, but he could play with the length.

A tentacle jabbed at Mikoto, and she moved back to evade it as she had done until then. At that exact moment, another tentacle shrunk to half-length and transferred its water, causing the tentacle jabbing at Mikoto to grow in length, which it hadn't done since the start of the fight.

Despite their failures, he was confident in his previous attempts that he would hit her, but he was most confident that he would surprise her and get the hit— so it stung the most when Mikoto dodged the attack as though she knew it was coming.

The charge in the tentacles ran out at that moment, and Mikoto dashed in close to him. Before he knew it, he was hit in four places, which left behind a burning pain. He had enough; he reverted back to his original style and opted to stay close to get at least one solid hit in, even if he had to trade damage.

He backed a punch to her face with an augmentation. Mikoto bobbed her head away before punishing him with a body shot that he absorbed and immediately went for another augmented punch for her liver, but before he could even pull his arm back to set up the punch, she hit his shoulder, shattering the punch before he could even throw it.

Takuma forced on and decided to stomp on her foot to lock it down and stab with an elbow. He went for her foot, but Mikoto shifted it to the side before stomping down on his foot. Takuma knew what was coming and raised his guard, but Mikoto was faster and slipped a punch through the guard that smashed his face. She then finished with an uppercut to the chin that affected his entire body.

Despite his doubled vision, Takuma had his tentacles attack her face with water to disrupt her vision. However, as he made that decision, she spun him by the shoulder while switching their places. He had no idea why she did that and thought it was to confuse him, but then he felt a punch dug into his back; it didn't hurt bad—but it destroyed the tentacle water mass.

How did she know he was going to use his tentacles? Takuma was utterly shocked. It was as though... she knew it was... coming...

At that moment, the entire fight flashed through his mind. Not once had she taken the initiative and had simply attacked him by picking apart the weakness of his moves. She had solely fought through the counterattack. He had thought she could do that because she had made herself slightly faster to challenge him—but as the fight ran through his mind, he realised she wasn't faster than him... she simply moved before him.

She was able to punish all of his moves because she knew what he was going to do before he did it—and thus set up counters for everything he did.

Takuma looked up at her, expecting to see red eyes only to see they were still onyx.

"...Then how?"

"In our first lesson, you said you wanted to be a jonin... broaden your horizons; this is the surface of what it means to be one," said Mikoto before promptly knocking him out with a spinning heel kick.

———

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A/N: Boy-o-boy has it been long since Takuma had his ass kicked in such straightforward fashion. Yeah, he was thrashed plenty when he was in Yu—but this is more reminiscent of his academy and early Ring days... Did it felt nostalgic?

We will start the next chapter with Maruboshi's POV who will give an explanation about what happened in the fight and we will even listen to Mikoto as she explains how she was able to do all that without using the Sharingan—no, she didn't use them in the fight.