It had been two days since Enomoto had barged into Takuma's home and forced him into a 'business agreement.' The conversation had given Takuma a lot to think about.

For one, he needed some blackmail ready as insurance in case Enomoto tried to kill him. With hindsight, he couldn't believe he didn't have something ready to go out in case he was killed. Not only would it protect him, but in case someone did kill him anyway, Takuma wanted to take them out with him. Revenge was best served cold— over his cold dead body.

Secondly, he needed to re-evaluate what he stored in his home. Enomoto's rude entry had made him question the safety of his more precious belongings while he was away. He had wanted to buy a safe for his home, but perhaps because he had worked with safes, he couldn't make a choice, and the ones he actually liked were far out of his budget. Renting a storage locker in a reputable facility seemed to be the next best option.

Third, he had to think about the work he had in front of him. Enomoto wanted to start quickly and was already working on the first target he wanted Takuma to take down. For that to happen, Takuma needed to devise a plan to take over investigations so he could work with freedom, which was of utmost importance given the nature of his deal with Enomoto. Talking it out with Kano seemed to be the best option— especially with how cross she was with him because of the Maiko Triad case, and surely, springing Taro's mom over her with no warning did him no favors.

He needed to visit Ryuu for restocking, though he wasn't looking forward to the bitchy mood the bastard would be in. Ryuu wasn't a problem per se, but Takuma had enough on his plate and didn't want to deal with a cynical old man who would undoubtedly want to 'chat' with him to sniff out the person who had betrayed him.

On top of that, his first ninjutsu category fight was just around the corner, and Takuma wasn't feeling satisfied with his command over the new jutsu he had purchased to replace the ones he couldn't use in the Ring. He felt he needed a test run before his debut, but no one was available. Nenro and Masaaki were both out of the village and while he loved Taro and Ai to death, they weren't exactly the level of opponents he was looking for. As for Maruboshi, they had an unspoken agreement not to bring the Ring in between them. He could go to his teacher and ask for a heavy spar, but Takuma knew the moment he held back the jutsu disallowed by the Ring, Maruboshi would notice and call him out. He also didn't want to come up with and use lies and excuses to deceive Maruboshi— it didn't feel right from deep within.

Other than that, he had to get back into the groove of his other self-improvement activities, which he had let stagnate as he shifted focus to the Maiko Triad investigations.

The Police Force was offering courses on intermediate-level team combat strategy and battle tactics. The beginner-level courses were part of his Police Force training. They had served him well while he commanded his team during the raids; as such, he wished to take it to the next level, especially when it was being taught by an Uchiha and offered at a discounted rate.

Uchiha could attend the courses for fees amounting to spare change. The allied clans got heavy discounts depending on their closeness to the Uchiha and how much they had contributed in the past year. This year, with the arrival of the new outsiders, the courses were now open to more people. Takuma and other junior officers in special departments were offered the lowest discount level. Finally, those in the general force had to pay in full if they wished to attend.

Takuma sighed and focused on his posture and balance as he kicked the hard bark of the thick wood log. Body conditioning was one of the least enjoyable parts of training, and yet, it was arguably among the most important. Old fashioned it may be but strengthening his bones and muscles was still the most reliable way to increase durability and protect squishy organs against chakra-powered opponents.

As Takuma single-mindedly went about his training, his ears picked up a noise.

It had been several months since he had started practicing his sense of hearing for Hidden Mist Jutsu; the progress had been excruciatingly slow, but even tiny droplets from a leaking tap eventually filled a bucket— Takuma's sense of hearing reached another level where he could hear far and wide, pick-up hushed sounds, and most importantly identify objects and situations solely based on sound.

'Three… no, four people.' By the time his thoughts caught up to him turning toward the source, he saw four people entering the clearing. Two men and two women. Three of them were his age, while the last man was much older—thirties if he had to guess.

The kicker? He knew three of those people.

The group saw Takuma as soon as he saw them.

"Takuma, is that you?" A bright smile bloomed on the lithe girl's face as she jogged toward him with her hand waving excitedly.

Seki Aimi. His academy classmate. They said you never forgot your first, and neither did Takuma— his first spar victory, that is. To this day, the fight, the last spar he had in the academy, was clear as glacial water. He had beaten Aimi and had promptly cried afterward. Not the part he was proud of, but he owned it anyway.

"It's nice to see you, Aimi," Takuma said with a hint of a surprised smile. Like everyone in his class, Aimi was never friends with Takuma, but he knew her to be one of the good ones.

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"What're you doing here?" she asked. Aimi exclaimed when her eyes went to Takuma's arms, "Wow, you really messed up your hands. What happened there?"

Takuma was dressed in a thin white tank top which left most of his arms exposed, showcasing the scars which were always hidden by the full-sleeved shirts that entirely made up his wardrobe.

"Yeah, you know, things happen," Takuma replied shortly as he walked to the outer garments (chainmail and uniform shirt) he had removed for training.

By the time he put on his shirt, the rest of Aimi's group had arrived.

Takuma gave them nods in greeting. "Momoe, Hideaki, I'm glad you both are doing well."

Okubo Momoe and Akimichi Hideaki. Another two of his academy classmates. The former was the Rookie of the Year, the title's importance boosted by the fact that Momoe came from a civilian background and had thus beaten all of the clan kids to achieve the top honors. The latter was from the Akimichi clan; the taciturn guy was the tallest and biggest in their class, and for some reason, Kibe, their teacher, would frequently pit Takuma against Hideaki, despite knowing they were a mismatch— in his defense, back in those days, everyone was a mismatch for Takuma.

"I thought your Police Force friend was a girl," said the last man.

Takuma turned to the taller man, and he didn't need to be told that the man was a jonin. There was something that Takuma couldn't put his finger on, but that intangible feeling told him that the person in front of him could wipe him off the face of the earth without him knowing. Every jonin he had come across had given him that feeling.

"Junior Officer Takuma, sir," he greeted respectfully. "You must be thinking about Fuma Arisu, one of our finest classmates. I actually work closely with her."

The team's jonin introduced himself as Sarutobi Kazuo.

Until very recently, he wasn't the type to wear his shinobi uniform off-duty, but that changed when he noticed the subtle changes in people's attitude towards him when he was in uniform— both civilian and shinobi treated him with a bit more respect when they saw the Police Force insignia stitched on his sleeve. Since then, he was no longer in a hurry to change out of his uniform before he left office at the end of the day. Today, he had gone to the headquarters to collect his pay stub, and had gone in his uniform— he didn't bother to change afterward, and it wasn't like he had to go work tomorrow, he could afford to let it go dirty.

Takuma had very limited interactions with jonin. They didn't grow on trees, and someone in his position didn't come across chances to interact with them every day. He walked past a couple of them every day in the Police Headquarters, but talking to them was another deal. Last he remembered, the jonin he had conversed with were Uchiha Itachi and Uchiha Shisui.

"You're in the Police Force?" Momoe asked with a healthy amount of surprise. Hideaki and Aimi mimicked her expression.

Takuma nodded. He understood the reason behind their surprise. It had been over a year and a half since they had left the academy, and despite living in the same village, Takuma didn't have much contact with his classmates. The last memory they had of him was of their batch's dead last, and to then find he was in the Leaf Military Police Force was enough cause for surprise.

"What brings you all here today?" he asked.

Aimi replied, "We planned to do some training today, but someone forgot to book us a training ground." She turned to Hideaki, but the mammoth-sized teen looked away.

"I hope we aren't disturbing you," asked Momoe. She was implying that they were going to use the clearing as their training field for the day.

They were disturbing him, but he couldn't say that to their face. "Well, as long you leave this corner to me, you're welcome to occupy the rest of the clearing," he didn't need much space.

"Would you like to join us for the day?" asked Kazuo. "We are sparring today. Having an additional person in the mix would do everyone some good."

"I would love to," Takuma replied. He didn't need to consider the offer for a second. The opportunity to spar against jonin-trained genin, people who had been shinobi exactly as long as he had been, was something he couldn't let slip away from his hands.

He wanted to test where he stood against them.

"This is how we do it, Takuma," Kazuo began. "We start slow and easy with some light sparring and then step it up until we are using all we can. Additionally, our spars are usually time-restricted. You either try to defeat your opponent in that time or try to survive until the end— both equally important skills to have."

"Understood," Takuma nodded. If you couldn't beat your opponent, either run away or try to survive until help arrived— no matter how long that took. Those were the rules of combat.

"Who wants to go first?" asked Kazuo.

Immediately, Aimi's hand shot up in the air, her body stretching up along with the raised hands as she stood on her toes as though trying to gain attention in a crowd of hundred people, even though they were only four people.

"I want to!" she said.

Kazuo nodded, "Who should we—"

Aimi spoke up again, "I want to fight Takuma!" She pointed at him. "Rematch!"

Kazuo looked at Takuma, who nodded, stepped forward, and faced Aimi.

"Start whenever you're ready."

Before the sentence could leave Kazuo's mouth, Aimi shot forward like a bullet.

'She's fast,' thought Takuma. By Ring standards, she was well into the upper echelons. He unhurriedly assumed his stance and kept his muscles loose. Aimi was fast, but not the fastest he had fought.

She didn't hesitate to enter his personal space and started with a palm strike. Takuma rotated his torso out of the way and countered with a hard elbow strike to her face which she expertly caught with a grin. He didn't respond to the grin. Takuma simply grabbed her hand, which had struck out, swept her legs, and threw her down with a judo throw.

"Woah!"

The next moment she was punched twice in the face, followed by a swift knee in her lower stomach. With her balance destroyed and the sudden blows that left her reeling, Aimi couldn't react quickly enough when Takuma put her into a lock.

Her hands immediately went to her neck when she felt an arm tightening around it, restricting her airflow. She tried to claw at it, pull it apart, but Aimi wasn't as strong as she was fast. Takuma kept his grip tight, and even when she tried to get it, he kept her near the ground, barring any attempts to find any position from where she could get any freedom.

"It's okay to tap out before you go under," Takuma spoke with a grunt as Aimi's small frame thrashed against him. "You can always try the next time, but if you go unconscious, it lowers your chances."

Aimi groaned before she finally roughly tapped out.

Takuma immediately let go and got pushed away from Aimi. He shrugged with a light smile as she glared at him before giving her a hand to stand up.

Takuma turned to Kazuo,

"I'm up for another round."