One thing Takuma disliked about the schedule Maruboshi had put him on was that he went through three sets of clothes daily. And for him, who didn't have a washing machine in his house, it was extra work after a hard day of exhaustion. He had to change clothes after his morning session with Maruboshi because he didn't want to enter a classroom full of people with dirty and sweat-stinking clothes.

"Takuma and Izumi. Come up."

Takuma stood up from the perimeter circle upon hearing Kibe's command.

At least he didn't have to change the clothes he wore in the academy because even if they got dirty in a taijutsu spar as they were about to, he could still wear them in his evening session because he was alone in the evening.

He arrived at the center of the sparring circle and faced his opponent. Uchiha Izumi, a girl with large onyx eyes who wore her brown hair in a ponytail. Takuma was pleased with his opponent today. He would get out relatively scot-free from the spar. Uchiha Izumi was the best at taijutsu in his class, but unlike others of her skill who would strike vital points and aim to cause the most pain, Izumi's hits were softer, and she hit at points where it didn't hurt much. And he knew it wasn't because she was weak— Takuma had seen her make Akimichi Hideaki clutch his fat gut after a spar.

And she didn't even leave bruises! Takuma would happily come to the academy with a smile if Izumi was his opponent in every spar.

"Start!"

Takuma dropped his Seal of Confrontation and immediately jumped back just in time to dodge the sweeping kick by Izumi. He ducked down to dodge another kick from her and rolled back to get out of her range.

He had improved! Takuma truly thought so... for three more seconds before Izumi took a deep forestep and got Takuma into her hitting range. Takuma couldn't even raise his hands on guard as Izumi got three hits in. The first kick went to the side, making him curl his body to the right, and the second hit followed immediately after to the other side. Before Takuma could even process it, Izumi elbowed him in the thigh, making his feet quiver in a sudden bout of weakness.

The Uchiha eased her stance and stood relaxed in front of a half-crouching Takuma. She pressed her foot on Takuma's before then gently pushing his forehead with her fingers. Takuma leaned back, and because he couldn't move one of his feet, he lost balance, tumbling down on his butt.

And when he looked up, Izumi had a kunai pointed at him. She didn't look pleased or otherwise and simply gazed down at Takuma with a passive expression.

"And, that's it," Kibe finished the fight.

Takuma sighed. So much for improving; he got his ass handed faster than he could've gotten in a hit himself.

He looked up and saw that Izumi had two fingers pointed at him. He realized what she meant, grabbed her two fingers with his two, and let her pull him up. The Seal of Reconciliation was complete, and the spar was officially over.

'Ah... I really want to win one,' Takuma sighed as he returned to his spot.

"You got better."

Takuma was distracted away from his note-taking by a soft voice beside him. He looked up to see who it was with the intention to immediately return to his work. No one in the class would speak to him. But he suddenly found himself staring into a pair of deep onyx eyes belonging to one Uchiha Izumi.

Startled, Takuma jerked away and bumped his knee into the downside of the bench. His face scrunched in pain as he furiously rubbed his knee in an attempt to soothe the pain.

"Is it fine?" she asked.

"Y-Yeah, it's fine," he said before looking around the classroom. No one was looking toward them. He turned back to her, "Do you want something?"

"You got better," Izumi repeated. "You were better today than the last time we fought. That hop back in the start was the right move."

"Yet the end result remained the same," Takuma sighed.

"Of course," Izumi said as if the result of their fight was as natural as the air they breathed.

Such confidence could very well be annoying, but coming from Izumi, the girl who didn't bash his body blue, it seemed endearing. It made Takuma chuckle.

"Why do you laugh?" she asked, a slight frown appearing between her brows.

He shook his head. "You wanted to tell me that I got better, that's it?" he asked.

"Should I've come with something else?" she asked, tilting her head.

"No... Thank you for the compliment, though. I've been working hard to get better. Hearing that it's paying off from someone else makes all of it worth it," Takuma said with a smile.

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"What have you been doing?"

"Getting hit mostly," said Takuma, nodding.

Izumi returned his nod in understanding. It wasn't a joke; Maruboshi had Takuma learning how to take hits. Learning how to block— like how blocking with the shoulder hurt the least, how to reposition the body to take the impact away from its intended target, the correct way to fall and retreat, and how to dodge whenever possible. In his efforts, he had been hit more than he had been in his entire life— that counter had been broken on the very first day.

"How did you get so good at taijutsu?" he asked. She was his peer and leagues better than him. Maruboshi might be experienced, but he wasn't ten years old; he hadn't been for a very long time. Another perspective might do him good, Takuma thought.

"... I practiced," Izumi said after a pause.

'Is she one of the instinctive types?' he thought. "What kind of practice? I don't know when to switch between defense and offense. When do I know it's the right time to move in for an attack and not get my face bashed-in while doing it?" he asked.

Offensive striking for Takuma was a tricky topic. He had at least one spar every day in the academy, maybe even two when Kibe thought he hadn't fulfilled his quota of daily humiliation. In every spar, he had to pick his chances to try to hit his opponent. Every opponent he faced was more skilled than him and physically stronger than him— even the shorter and leaner girls with the same weight as him were stronger and faster than him. He suspected chakra. For most of the fights, he was on the defense, trying to dodge and block attacks, and every time he tried to switch to offense, he had been soundly made to smooch the ground.

"I can't explain that here on the spot," said Izumi after some thought. "One of the times to hit someone is right after they've launched an attack. They're vulnerable to an attack as their body is in motion, and you can find an opening to exploit. There are many other opportunities where your attacks have a high chance of succeeding. I learned all of them one by one during spars; some I noticed on my own, others were pointed out to me. You have to spar again and again... until your mind stops looking for openings and your body takes over that job."

Takuma narrowed his eyes. It made sense. Maruboshi had told him that combat was more about honed instincts than active thinking.

'Maybe her eyes helped her with taijutsu,' he thought.

When one heard of the Uchiha clan, the first thing that came to mind was their kekkei genkai, one of the Three Great Dojutsu— Sharingan, the Copy Wheel Eye. The infamous red eyes with commas enabled the Uchiha reading lip movements to copy ninjutsu and taijutsu. Nothing was safe under the Sharingan's gaze; all secrets were laid bare for the Uchiha to exploit. The Uchiha who had awakened Sharingan could copy any taijutsu they liked and execute if their body allowed the movement.

Uchiha Sasuke had done so with Rock Lee— copying the taijutsu prodigy's style like a mirror and then had trained his body until he could imitate the absurd moments that could only be performed after hours over hours, day after day of grueling practice.

As part of the story flashed through Takuma's mind, he felt a little cold as he looked at Uchiha Izumi. Sasuke copying Lee wasn't the most terrifying part of the story. It was how it had been achieved. Sasuke wasn't there to see Lee perform his entire breadth of taijutsu against Gaara— it was Kakashi Hatake with his transplanted Sharingan who had copied the movements, who then taught Sasuke. Making Sasuke's learning from a secondhand source. And yet, the moves had come out to be precisely the same.

A thought emerged in Takuma's mind. Sasuke was barely six when the Uchiha clan was wiped out by his brother, Uchiha Itachi. A child as young as Sasuke wouldn't have spent much time training with his clan—

'Learning from teachers who had seen various styles of taijutsu, fought a diverse range of opponents... and had copied all of their moves,' thought Takuma. Teachers who could give so much to their students.

The Uchiha clan hadn't been annihilated yet. Izumi Uchiha was the proof of it. It was not only her; Takuma had even seen shinobi from Leaf Military Police Force patrolling market streets— all of them sported a fan symbol that resembled the Uchiha clan symbol. Some of them even had similar onyx eyes to Izumi's.

He couldn't exactly recall when the Uchiha massacre occurred, but the clan was alive and thriving now. Which meant Izumi must have learned from an Uchiha— and he felt both terrified and envious. Terrified that she could do much worse during their spars and envious that he didn't have the superior genetics that would've made his life a lot easier.

But then Takuma frowned. Did Izumi even have Sharingan? He thought about it; given her age, it was unlikely she had awakened her bloodline. Which meant she had gotten good through plain effort. He felt ashamed.

"The only way to get better is to keep doing it until you are good, is it," Takuma sighed. He didn't have a Sharingan lying around in his eye socket or any kekkei genkai. Meaning if he wanted to get better, he needed to fight more so he could learn more.

"What do you eat?" he asked, leaving the Uchiha line of thought behind. It only served to make him feel pity toward himself. Everyone was stronger and faster than him; maybe the kids these days were eating something that he and Maruboshi didn't know.

She shrugged and said she ate whatever her mother gave her to eat. Izumi listed off the things she ate, and they matched the home cuisine of Leaf village. She even listed plenty of sweets that she got after dinner as dessert. Takuma was envious— he could only have fruit as sweets, and that too never after dinner. That was bad, Maruboshi had mandated so himself.

"How're you so flexible? I can't get my kicks to the head," Takuma said with a wrinkle between his brows. Maruboshi was an empathetic person and teacher, but he had openly shown his displeasure with Takuma's inflexibility.

"I don't know. I was always flexible."

'Fucking talented people!' Takuma cursed in his mind.

"But I stretch every morning."

"Oh! What do you do? Show it to me someday, yeah? I'm more rigid than a steel pipe."

Izumi snickered and chuckled behind her hand as her big eyes turned into crescents. "What's with that? That's funny."

Well, at least his worries have the use of making others laugh, thought Takuma. Cheers for self-deprecating humor...

He hoped he could enjoy it one day... and wished that day would be close by.