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He felt a pang of pain in his chest every time he took a breath into his lungs. The ringing in his ear was deafening. Every twitch of a muscle pulled on his singed skin, a reminder that he had just bathed by fire. The only thing helping him concentrate through the bouts of dizziness was his sole focus on the one who had put him in the state and the want to return the favor.
Masaaki tightened his grip, feeling the metal against his fingers and palm as he felt the chakra flow through his body into his special knuckles. The moment the metal absorbed the chakra, he shot towards Nenro like a bullet.
Nenro was many things, but he wasn't faster than him. He couldn't play keep-up. Once in range, it was dodge, block, or strike back.
Masaaki swung his fist hard enough to disembowel, glowing chakra metal or not. Nenro dove to the dirt, letting the swing spin the big man half around, and then Nenro was back up, slamming his foot in the weak space below Masaaki's ribs. The kick hit Masaaki square, struck the bones.
The crowd howled, their rapture rising as Masaaki looked down to see where he'd been hit. The explosion tag had hurt him to the bones, the kick just made everything worse. His eyes thinned to slits and his fingers dug over his knuckles, pushing more chakra in. He cocked his arms, and went for Nenro.
Nenro gripped his kunai with one hand, his body facing to the side as Masaaki ran towards him, the stance indicating that he was ready to stand ground and fight. When Masaaki closed in, Nenro jumped back and twisted his body to reveal a paper ball in his other hand that had been hidden from Masaaki's line of sight.
Once again, Masaaki's full-on forward charge threw him into the path of the incoming paper ball. Masaaki recognized the paper ball instantly because he had helped Nenro making them at home. But it was too late as the ball exploded in a burst of black smoke.
"Fight me openly, Nenro!" he roared. Despite knowing it was a simple smoke screen, his instinctively stopped, but only for a moment as Masaaki ran again.
The moment Masaaki was out, he caught sight of Nenro who stood in front of him, not running. He checked to see if Nenro was holding something annoying yet again only to find his hands joined to make a hand seal.
"You—"
Masaaki felt himself bound by ropes that snaked around his body, not leaving a single inch unrestricted. He moved his eyes down and saw ropes around his body, but as he looked longer, he noticed how they were translucent.
Genjutsu!
It was Nenro's Genjutsu Shibari (Genjutsu Binding)! There were no ropes; he just needed to break it.
Nenro dropped the kunai and dipped both his hands into his back pouch to retrieve all the shuriken he could fit in his hands that he hurled them towards Masaaki.
The moment Masaaki interrupted the flow of his chakra in his body to break the genjutsu, half a dozen shuriken dug into his torso. He let out a howl as the sharp metal tips dug and clung onto his body. He dropped to his knees and fortunately, half of the shuriken came out.
The fight couldn't go out like this. He wasn't smart like Taro, he couldn't talk like Ai, or make friends like Nenro, he didn't know strange things that according to Takuma every shinobi should know.
But he had one thing— he could fight.
'—Masaaki, you're a strong child, these will make you ever stronger—'
The old man at the smithery had so himself when he had given him his knuckles. He was stronger than anyone in the academy. Everyone had said the same after he had beaten everyone back at Inaho. But when they came to the Hidden Leaf village, the jonin they tested against had rejected them.
Ai and Nenro hadn't made any mistakes, none that he had noticed. It made him think, was it because he wasn't strong enough? No, that couldn't be it. Maybe it was because no one knew him in the Leaf village that they didn't know.
It was a mistake that the jonin hadn't selected him, Ai, and Nenro. He was going to prove it. The first step was to win the tournament and show everyone that he was strong.
Masaaki roared as he swiped his hand and dislodged the remaining shuriken.
He scrambled to his feet, but Nenro moved with speed, the kunai bearing arm already swinging. Blocking was improbable, so with no other choice, he dipped down to one knee to avoid the deep stab in return to have the blade graze his shoulder, adding to his already agonizing injuries.
Masaaki looked up at Nenro and with the momentum of his entire body with him, he dug a chakra-infused uppercut into Nenro's body. The blow sent Nenro flying and he crashed into the dirt on his back, but then forced him to tumble head over heels until his face was on the floor. Nenro groaned and coughed into the dirt as he tried to get up and failed.
On will alone, Masaaki dragged his feet towards Nenro. The world was tilting, his chest was a maze of agony, and he still hadn't caught his breath, but he lifted his fists and he pointed it at the man he called his best friend.
Nenro had somehow gotten up, vomiting a mouthful of blood as he did. He couldn't even stand properly on his feet and swayed left to right.
Nenro punched him. Masaaki didn't feel anything. Nenro hit him again. The punch was so weak that even his pierced front didn't feel anything. He knew the fight was over. Nenro could no longer fight.
"I-I… win," Masaaki raised his fist—
—and fell to the ground.
———
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Takuma was conversing with Maruboshi when Shady Guy's apprentices rushed in with two stretchers. He was lying down so he couldn't see, but it only took a moment for him to realize that only two other people were fighting today. And he knew it was Nenro and Masaaki when Ai rushed into the tent a second later.
He laid on one side of the tent with Arisu's stretcher bed beside him. Masaaki and Nenro's bed were placed across from them.
He fought through the pain and got up despite Maruboshi's protest to look at his teammates and friends. They looked terrible. Both of their faces had begun to swell and through the tears on their clothes, he could see nasty cuts and tears. The sight of Masaaki's burns made him grimace. If not for the miraculous power of iryojutsu, Takuma would've felt heartfelt pity for the damage done to their bodies would affect their quality of lives moving onwards.
"Ai," he called, his voice breaking.
She looked towards him. Her eyes were filled with worry, her features wrought in agony and distress. She wasn't crying. That would be ridiculous. Everyone knew what they were getting into from the day Yoshio announced unrestricted combat. It was only natural for them to injure each other miserably if they tried— such was the power they wielded. But that didn't spare anyone from seeing their loved ones batter each other to the ground in front of their eyes.
She glanced at her childhood friends once more before walking over to Takuma.
"They seem to have gone overboard," he commented, trying to smile, in spite of knowing how ugly it would look on his face at that moment.
Ai half-chuckled. "You don't look any better. I came to see you before when you were still unconscious. Taro wanted to come, but they only let one person in," she said, touching Takuma's bandaged face. "… They fought really hard. Even you. Too hard, you know."
"I can see that," he paused before asking, "so, who am I beating next?"
"Nenro," Ai sighed. She looked neither happy nor upset about it.
Now that surprised Takuma. He was a hundred percent expecting Masaaki to clean the floor with Nenro, but it seemed he was mistaken. He looked at Nenro who in many ways looked worse despite Masaaki's ghastly condition.
And again, he had missed another one of Nenro's fight. And it wasn't like the event was live streamed or even recorded where he could pull up the VOD to see what he had missed. The fact that he wasn't present during two out of Nenro's three fights was worrying. While they did regularly spar outside of Yoshio's sparring matchups, the difference between light sparring and the real-deal-putting-the-body-on-the-line fighting was a wide chasm.
Takuma broke out of his thoughts and noticed Ai looking at Maruboshi, who was observing the treatment going on Masaaki and Nenro's side.
"Ai, this is my mentor, Maruboshi Kosuke. I won't be here today if not for his tremendous help and support every step of the way," he said. Maruboshi looked at Ai and smiled, and Takuma introduced the other side, "This is Matsushima Ai, one of my teammates," he pointed to the other side, "those are my other teammates— Nenro and Masaaki. I've been getting beaten together with them."
"It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance, young lady," Maruboshi bowed like a gentleman.
Ai was left flustered for a second before she returned the bow with her greetings. Takuma smirked seeing her lagging in communication like that.
The tent flaps were pushed aside for Yoshio and the other chunin instructors to enter alongside him. Yoshio scouted the scene in front of him and his gaze stopped in surprise when he saw Maruboshi. He bowed to him, that Maruboshi returned. No words were exchanged between them. Takuma felt Yoshio giving him a peculiar look for a moment before he turned to speak to Shady Guy.
"Will they be in the condition to fight?"
"First of all, don't enter my space of work without my permission," replied the Shady Guy with his back to them as he operated on Masaaki. "If they want to fight, I can patch them enough for another fight. It'll hurt much worse afterwards."
"I'm ready to fight, sir," Takuma voiced his opinion.
"Noted," Yoshio nodded.
"But they're so injured," Ai joined the conversation. "Neither of them is clearly not ready to fight. Can't we postpone the fight to another time… sir."
Chinatsu, Arisu's chunin instructor, sneered. "Postponement isn't in the room, much less the table. Didn't you see the crowd outside? They took time out of their work to come see the fights. They won't come another time. If one of them isn't in the condition to fight or willing to fight, it'll automatically count as a forfeit and the other will be crowned the victor." A nasty grin appeared on her face. "Of course, if neither of them is up for the fight, that's fine as well— it's just that no one will be getting the final prize," she gave Takuma a stink eye as she finished. Maybe she was pissed that Arisu didn't win.
A frown appeared on Ai's pretty little face as she turned to Yoshio, who nodded.
"I am fighting," said Takuma.
Ai looked at him and seemed to want to say something, but didn't. She knew as well as him that after coming this far and having been beaten so much, there was no way that he was going to back out now.
The question now was if Nenro was willing to participate in the fight. And from the looks of it, they would only when Nenro was in a condition to voice his thoughts.
The answer came almost immediately. From across the room, Nenro said in a breaking hoarse voice,
"I will… fight."
Takuma peered across to Nenro's bed. He couldn't see the expression on his face as Nenro was lying down, but Takuma could see the trembling hand that was balled up into a fist.
At that moment he knew Nenro was going to make it in time for the fight no matter what.
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The link is in the synopsis!