- In the Previous Chapter-
"For once in your life, could you stop giving anatomy lessons and focus on not getting yourself killed?" Shinji, beside her, looked at her in surprise - he had never seen Jun'ko so serious. Even her usual chaotic energy seemed to have transformed into an almost palpable concern.
When she saw the blood on Aoi's side, Jun'ko started to leap forward, only to be stopped by Yukiko's hand on her arm.
"We can't interfere," Yukiko said calmly, though her eyes betrayed a note of concern.
"But..." Jun'ko bit her lip, frustrated by her helplessness. "If this continues, that idiocephalic guy with glasses will end up..." Her voice trailed off as she watched her friend stagger, narrowly avoiding yet another attack.
"If you survive this, Aoi," he muttered, "I swear I will make you regret all those times you corrected me on the difference between jellyfish and sea anemones."
- Present -
It was then that Fujimoto-sensei stepped in, declaring the match over. As the doctors checked Aoi's wound, Ren kept his expression impassive, even though internally he felt a mixture of relief and self-loathing.
'It was necessary,' he said to himself as he watched the doctors treat his friend. 'In this village, bonds are a weakness I cannot afford.'
"Mizutani Ren versus Koga," Fujimoto-sensei announced, drawing everyone's attention.
Ren stepped into the arena, his mind still reeling from his internal conflict. The tanto beside him seemed heavier than usual.
Koga, a burly boy from class 3-C, smiled confidently. "Nothing personal, little guy, but this match will be over soon."
Ren didn't respond, just watched. His eyes studied his opponent's every move, even though he seemed almost distracted on the outside.
'Heavy breathing, stance slightly off to the left... a classic academy student.'
Koga began with a direct taijutsu assault, his movements solid but predictable. Ren dodged with economy of movement, each step calculated to conserve energy, occasionally tripping in a seemingly natural way.
'Well, despite having 15 kg of weight on me, I can get the upper hand. I have to remember to make my movements less fluid.'
"You're just running away!" Koga taunted, frustration evident in his voice as his fists met only air. He quickly formed the seals for Suiton: Mizurappa, a sequence he had clearly practiced countless times.
A jet of water shot towards Ren, who responded with the same technique, purposely executing the last seal with a slight imprecision to reduce the water's pressure. The two blasts collided in midair, with Koga's winning, forcing Ren to roll to the side in a dodge that looked more like luck than planning.
'I mustn't show too much precision in my seals,' he thought as he stood up, pretending to be slightly shaken by the impact. 'A first-year student should still have some hesitation.'
Koga, emboldened by his success, charged again. "Now I've got you!"
It was his overconfidence that gave him away. Ren executed a Kawarimi that, while perfectly timed, seemed almost haphazard in its execution. Koga found himself hitting a log, while Ren appeared behind him in what looked like a fortunate combination of positioning and opportunity.
A single strike to the abdomen, timed to look more like luck than precision, ended the match. Ren maintained a slightly surprised expression, as if he himself hadn't expected the strike to be so effective.
"Winner: Mizutani Ren," Fujimoto-sensei declared, his trained gaze lingering for a moment on the seemingly imprecise but strangely effective movements.
The final match of the day pitted Misaki against Taki. The air in the arena seemed to grow heavy as the two fighters took their positions. Misaki's eyes had already taken on that distinctive reddish hue that her kekkei genkai was about to be used.
Taki, despite his obvious tension, maintained a solid fighting stance. He was one of the top students in class 3-B in taijutsu, and he hoped his superior technique could offset his opponent's genetic advantage.
"Begin!"
Misaki wasted no time in preliminaries. She moved with impressive speed, her first strike landing before Taki could complete his guard. A thin cut appeared on his cheek, and that was when the real fight began.
The drops of blood from the wound, instead of falling, hung in the air like liquid rubies. Taki tried to ignore the disturbing spectacle, launching into a combination of punches and kicks that he had practiced hundreds of times. But Misaki dodged with ease, her every move calculated not just to avoid the blows, but to position herself for her next attack.
"Blood tells the truth," Misaki said, her voice strangely distant as the suspended droplets began to solidify into tiny crimson blades. "It can't lie, it can't hide, it can't pretend to be something it's not."
Taki was forced onto the defensive, now fighting not only Misaki but the deadly shards of crystallized blood that danced around her like a swarm of red wasps. He attempted a water technique, hoping to dilute the manipulated blood, but Misaki had anticipated the move.
The shards of crystallized blood moved in a coordinated swarm—some swirling clockwise around Taki's head, while others arced downward before her eyes. Each shard, no bigger than a coin but as sharp as glass, followed a slightly different trajectory, creating a swirl of red dots that made it impossible to focus on a single threat.
As Taki desperately tried to keep track of the shards closest to his face, Misaki lunged forward with primal ferocity. Her fist, charged with rage rather than technique, crashed into Taki's floating ribs with a dull impact that echoed across the arena. The air left the boy's lungs violently, and he bent sideways in excruciating pain. In that moment of vulnerability, the blood shards converged all at once, suspended millimeters from his exposed neck like a necklace of deadly rubies.
The fight ended at that moment, with Taki immobilized and surrounded by dozens of shards of crystallized blood, each ready to strike at the slightest movement.
"Match," Fujimoto-sensei declared, his voice betraying a hint of concern at how easily Misaki had dominated the fight.
As the blood blades dissolved into the air, Misaki walked away without a word, leaving Taki trembling and knowing that he had faced something far more dangerous than just an academy student.
The spectators were silent, awed by the brutality of the fight. In less than two minutes, Misaki had shown why she was considered one of the favorites of the tournament, and why the Kurushimi clan was so feared in Kirigakure.
As he watched, Ren made a mental note of her style. If his calculations were correct, they would soon be facing each other in the arena.
'Compared to the academy fights seen in Naruto, the level here seems much higher, is it because it's wartime?' Ren mused as he watched Taki being rescued. 'Who knows how the village of the Mist would have evolved if there had not been the purge of the Kekkei Genkai…'
That evening, in the solitude of his room, Ren took out a seemingly nondescript containment scroll from his ninja pouch. Forming seals with methodical precision, he revealed the small notebook with the dark cover.
'Kaguya clan,' he wrote in his precise handwriting. 'Attack on the village planned. Date uncertain - probably during the reign of Yagura. Characteristics: frontal attack, no strategy, pure fighting ferocity. Their kekkei genkai is formidable, but their pride will be their downfall. The attack will fail, leading to the near-extinction of the clan.'
'Kurushimi clan, devastating power, one to watch.'
He closed the notebook and formed seals to reseal it in the scroll.
The evening fog was returning to cover the academy, but for once, it wasn't the most ominous thing in the air.