The kunai felt strange in his hand. Throwing practice had continued to have a place in his training regiment, but it had been a while since he had held it in a melee grip; to use the kunai as a blade rather than a throwing dagger. Three months of training with bare-handed brawling had left his fingers feeling stiff.

Now that he was transitioning to the weapons category in the Ring, he needed to re-familiarize himself with wielding his weapons for active combat. It was time to scrape the rust off.

"You told me you wanted to talk. I'm unsure if a kunai has a place in conversation."

Thankfully, he had just the way to warm himself up before the Ring fights. If he was going to be slashed, he very much preferred fewer cuts to heal afterward.

"Come on, let's spar; I haven't sparred with you for so long," said Takuma as he skipped on his toes. "Weapons allowed. No jutsu. And for god's sake, don't whip out your explosive tags."

"So long? It's only been two weeks," Nenro sighed as he pulled off his thin cotton sleeveless vest, folded it neatly, and placed it beneath the tree's shade. "It was that one time and you all have deemed me to be some sort of pyromaniac," he walked to the open field to face Takuma.

"It's your fault for whipping out a grade-two explosive tag," said Takuma, holding the kunai in his right, dominant arm. "And I do want to talk to you about something."

"I did come to talk," shrugged Nenro as he took some steps back with one hand in his back pouch.

Takuma closed the distance and swung his kunai in a diagonal overhead slash. Nenro pranced back as Takuma unleashed a quick volley of swings. The arm hidden behind Nenro's back whipped out, and a senbon flew out. Takuma leaned his head to the side and heard the faint rip of wind as the senbon passed him by.

"How did you make friends with so many chunin?" asked Takuma as he countered Nenro's low kick with his own and raised the same leg to Nenro's head.

Nenro barely stopped the swift strike at the last minute and stumbled back. Even while his balance was disrupted, Nenro threw a shuriken to stop Takuma just as he was about to charge in, giving him enough time to regain his balance.

"You're my friend, Takuma," said Nenro, as he armed himself with a kunai in both hands, "if I was being generous, I'd call them my work acquaintances. They're my connections, a relationship built upon both sides being beneficial to each other," he smirked, "but, of course, if they ask me, they're my dear… dear friends."

"How are you beneficial to them?" he asked. Takuma retrieved shuriken in both hands and sent them hunting toward Nenro. He tried to think how he could be useful to a chunin and couldn't come up with anything.

Nenro's arm moved faster for an untrained eye to move, and he deflected the shuriken with dexterous skill. He shrugged, "They like me; they enjoy my company. I know how to make them laugh, flatter them at just the right time, and make them feel I understand. When you know what people want to hear, it's easy to make 'friends,'" he winked.

Takuma was only half-surprised hearing Nenro. His friend had always been one of those people who attracted others, wanting to be friends with Nenro. However, he always thought others would be trying to appeal to Nenro and not the other way around.

Nenro's hand swung from a blind spot, and it was already halfway through when Takuma noticed Nenro had thrown something. He hurriedly raised a kunai to strike a stone away from him. He couldn't take a pause as a shuriken followed closely, and Takuma had to awkwardly bend his torso to evade that shuriken.

Nenro took advantage of the situation and came on to Takuma with a kunai in a two-handed grip over his head.

Instinct flew through him, and Takuma let himself fall to the ground on his hand to free his leg that he used to kick Nenro in the chest, sending him stumbling back a few feet. It was as he knew; weapons added an element of range that he had gotten used to not facing. But it wasn't a problem.

"How do I do the same?" Takuma asked as both he and Nenro got up.

Nenro grunted as he rubbed his chest. "Cultivating connections requires time and effort," he said. "If you're trying to build a connection to someone higher up than you, then they need to see some value in you. Of course, you can always start with simply getting close to them, build something of a friendly relationship, and then asking them for something; however, that takes time to build up to a level where they're willing to do you a favor— but if you show them value, they'll be much more agreeable to do something for you."

"What if I don't have time?" Takuma asked as he slammed his shoulder into Nenro.

Nenro took a step back and tried to get in a body shot that Takuma caught. "Make some then. Few things come easily, this is not one of them— you'll have to put in the effort."

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Takuma swung an elbow for Nenro's head as he pulled the grabbed hand down. Nenro grabbed the incoming elbow with his other hand in a firm grip. They stared at each other for a moment before both made their moves.

Takuma bent the arm in his grasp while Nenro used the hand holding Takuma's elbow to smash into Takuma's face. The fist made a solid hit. Takuma turned his face back to Nenro, and instinct took over as he kneed Nenro in the groin, followed by a hard headbutt. He stepped back and was about to strike Nenro in the throat when he realized that he had let habit take over.

"Ah, oh my god, I'm so sorry," he said in a hurry.

Nenro groaned hard as his leg stuck together as if glued, trembling faintly. "W-Why would you do that?" he croaked. "We were just sparring."

Both of them were fighting at half-speed and were pulling their punches. Even though weapons were allowed, neither wanted to cut the other. Until the last moment, Takuma had kept all of his trained instinct, the aggression and brutality that was demanded in the Ring, in check. They had accidentally leaked out when Nenro had stuck his head.

"Yeah, really sorry about that… just came out, you know," Takuma said with a wrinkled nose.

"No, I don't know," Nenro finally stood straight, still groaning.

Takuma could only chuckle awkwardly.

———

.

Takuma breathed out as he closed his eyes and concentrated on the crowd noise coming from outside the tunnel. Takuma's body was covered with a sheen of sweat from the warmup in preparation for the fight.

The weight of the kunai case around his thigh and the weapon pouch tied around his waist hanging behind him that he got so used to that he normally never felt anymore, but at the moment, that weight felt pronounced. Scars only wore his mask, black shorts, and black shinobi sandals in the arena, but today, he had boiled leather arm guards and shin protectors.

He focused on the crowd noise, trying to empty out his thoughts. From what Sango had said, fights in the weapons category tended to last shorter than in the taijutsu category. The involvement of sharp weapons chipped away at the fighter's ability to fight faster than blunt fists.

The announcer called for him, and Takuma went running into the arena. The weapon category fights were fought in a different arena than the taijutsu category. The dome that covered the arena was made of a solid metal grid that could handle heavy loads and bashing, but for the weapons category, they had added a second layer of finely threaded metal mesh to stop weapons like senbon from escaping the arena and poking a viewer's eye out.

But the thing that attracted Takuma's gaze was the arena floor. The white base was no more visible as the red blood had dried on the surface to give it a dirty-brown cover. Enough blood had spilled to cover the large arena's floor. Standing there, he could smell the scent of blood, even though he knew it was just his imagination— he had never seen so much blood before.

His eyes went to his opponent, Bloodshot, and found the lithe woman staring at him with a short sword in one hand and a kunai in the other. Takuma stared into the woman's black eyes and felt compelled to draw a kunai in each hand. The gleam of the short sword blade made him wonder if it was a correct decision to exit the taijutsu category.

The moment the metal door shut behind the announcer, Bloodshot shot forward like a quick cat.

*Screech!*

Sparks flew as Bloodshot's short sword clashed with Takuma's kunai. She raised her kunai and swung it down at Takuma. Takuma pushed the short sword back and twisted his body to make the kunai miss by a few centimeters. He kicked the woman in the gut and stabbed for her short sword arm. Bloodshot grunted as she staggered back and saw the kunai coming for her flesh.

She moved faster than before, and her kunai arm grazed against the incoming kunai, the two opposing forces sending both arms flying. Bloodshot was already spinning back on her pivoting. Takuma pulled his torso back as the short sword swung for his life.

The tip of the blade grazed Takuma on top of the chest, missing the neck by a few centimeters. A thin cut split the skin as a few droplets of red peeked from inside.

Takuma jumped back and threw the kunai in his left for Bloodshot's chest.

Bloodshot dropped to the floor, her posture like a wild animal on fours, her eyes locked onto Takuma. She shot forward, and Takuma felt his heart lurch from not being able to secure any time or space to gather himself.

Slash, thrust, jab, jab, jump, clash!

Takuma didn't need to be told about Bloodshot's dual-wielding combat style as he experienced the quick barrage of blood-hungry blades. He wasn't allowed to draw a second kunai as every muscle fiber on his body moved in concordance that his blood was to be kept inside his body. His body felt stretched to the limit as the one kunai only allowed him to counter the short sword, Bloodshot's kunai came close to hacking his body far too many times for Takuma's comfort.

He was well aware that he was rapidly moving toward the edge of the arena. He knew he would be cornered the moment he hit the dome, and Bloodshot knew as well what that would mean with the way she was brandishing her blades, not allowing Takuma to travel anywhere but towards the dome wall.

Takuma needed to act quickly, and he decided to summon his only other weapon. He was going to overload his fist with chakra, break something in Bloodshot, and turn the tide to finish the fight quickly. It was his only choice.

'Sorry, this is going to hurt,' he told himself.

Bloodshot slashed her short sword down, and Takuma raised his arm to it. He unsuccessfully stifled a scream as the blade tore through the leather arm guard and dug into his flesh below. His knees buckled a smidge, but he couldn't stop to feel the fear of the metal reaching his bone and immediately charged his fist with chakra and aimed it just below her chest. He didn't want to shatter her ribcage, but a cracked rib was totally within the rules.

The chakra flowed through the tenketsu as the clenched fist moved forward and struck Bloodshot.

*Baam!*

Takuma felt his shoulder pop out of its socket as the nasty recoil from the overload fist shot through his arm muscles and bones. He had failed, Takuma knew from the spiking pain that he had put too much chakra than required, and now he was getting punished for it.

The punishment didn't end with that.

Bloodshot cried as the chakra fist assaulted her body. She fell to her knees, her hand leaving the short sword to grab her side. Her body quivered as she leaned closer to the floor as though she was about to fall any second. She glared at Takuma with hate in her eyes and shouted through heavy guttural breath as she dug her kunai deep into Takuma's gut until the entire blade was sheathed within his body.

Takuma felt light-headed, and the last thing he felt before darkness overtook him was the heavy taste of metal in his mouth.