Early in the morning, Takuma roused from sleep without the help of an alarm. His biological clock was fine-tuned because of the routine he had followed for years without change. Even his new surroundings, the unfamiliar bed, and the weather could do nothing to disrupt his sleep—but he reckoned that his deep sleep was mainly due to Anko’s rigorous training; he had fallen asleep the moment he had hit the pillow top.

Takuma slept in nothing but his underwear. He groaned in ache as he stood up from his bed, his muscles spiking with pain because of his training; he walked to his travel bag that he hadn’t unpacked to take out a set of shirt and shorts along with the toiletries he had gotten from the quartermaster and headed to the toilet start his day. He brushed his teeth and washed his face before returning to his room to put on the weighted vest and ankle and wrist weights, and pick up his weapons pouch to take with him.

The house was silent as Takuma tied the laces on his dirty boots near the front door. Last night, his housemates had stayed up late at night, and it seemed none of them were early-rise types. He was invited—it was a good avenue to get to know everyone, but he was tired and had to get up early, so after weighing the pros-and-cons, Takuma politely declined.

As he opened the door, the moist but cool early morning air hit him. The monsoon season had arrived, and it rained substantially at the border region of the Land of Hot Waters and the Land of Frost.

It had rained last night. The pressed dirt roads were wet and muddy from the rain, and Takuma’s already dirty boots picked up more mud as he jogged to start his day off.

The extra weight on his body changed how he moved and breathed forcibly. He had experimented with ankle weights before, but he wasn’t consistent with them to achieve any substantial gains. Takuma hoped that someone overseeing his training would motivate him to keep up the weight training.

His body, while mostly healed, was also showing signs of strain. It was minuscule, but after the combat situations he had been in the past few days, Takuma could tell that he wasn’t the same as he was before the assassination. His body’s limits had changed, shortened by the injuries; he could do everything he was capable of before, but there was a 1-2% shortcoming he noticed he had developed. It wasn’t much, but Takuma was concerned that that final couple percent would be all that mattered in a life-or-death situation.

Anko wanted him to develop his body to increase his Physical Energy to close the gap between it and his Spiritual Energy to correct his energy imbalance. Takuma hoped that this physical training would also help him regain the 1-2% he had lost.

The news about the imbalance and its effect on chakra quality wasn’t a cause of worry to Takuma. He had been doing just fine until now, and with Anko’s training, his situation was bound to improve as long as he wasn’t completely screwed over by genetics. The path was straightforward—train hard every day until the fault became a blessing; the more he trained his body, the more chakra he would be able to produce, and that of a higher quality than he currently produced.

There was no hidden catch; thus, he was happy.

Takuma reached the farm designated as the training ground by Anko. Seeing that she had not yet arrived, Takuma jogged around the farmland for a while before moving on to stretching—stretching before training allowed the body to warm up, while stretching after a workout was a good way to let the body settle down gradually.

While stretching, Takuma heard footsteps and turned to greet Anko, only to see that it was someone else.

A short and petite girl with copper-brown hair was walking towards him. Her hair were cut in a horrendous bowl-cut style, and she wore an unflattering brown tracksuit. Takuma stood up from the ground and faced the girl who stopped a small distance from him.

She spoke first. “Are you Takuma?” Her voice was crisp, her tone strong. The expression on her face was unwavering, and her firm body language landed a solid first impression on Takuma.

“My name is Takuma. Who might you be?”

“Heard you defeated Kameko. Fight me,” she said.

Takuma was taken aback by the sudden challenge. He stared at the strange girl, wondering who she was. She had found him this early in the morning to pick up a fight against him.

‘How did she even know to find me here?’ Then, a thought popped up in his mind.

He asked, “Are you Rikku?”

“I am. Come on, let’s fight,” said Rikku, the final member of Anko’s Team-9.

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“Uhm,” Takuma wasn’t sure how to respond. He was not expecting the first meeting with her to be like this. Kameko had picked up a fight against him, and he was more than happy to oblige so he could punch that annoying face of hers—but there shouldn’t be any ill will between him and Rikku, and even from the looks of it, she didn’t seem to be angry with him.

“You want to spar with me?” he asked.

“I want to see how strong you are,” Rikku said in reply.

Was this another test? Did Rikku, too, want to see if he was capable of being one of the combatants on the team?

“So? Are we fighting or not?” she asked again.

“Well, I don’t mind, but only until Anko arrives.”

“Good,” Rikku nodded.

Takuma’s hand went to the vest’s clasp, but he stopped himself.

‘—You will not remove those as long as you’re awake and not on missions—’

Anko’s words popped up in his mind. He glanced up at Rikku, who had assumed a stance. This was only a spar, and his spot was already guaranteed; he didn’t need to prove anything. Moreover, the problem with his personal experience with ankle weights failed due to his inconsistency.

Takuma decided to keep his weights on during the spar.

When Rikku saw that, her brows furrowed.

“I notice that you don’t have a weapons pouch on you. Should we make it a taijutsu-only spar?” he asked.

Rikku raised her fists up and center. “You can use whatever you want.”

Takuma stared for a moment before shrugging. If she was going unarmed, then he would do the same.

“We start the moment this lands on the ground.” Takuma held up a shuriken in his hand.

Rikku nodded, and he threw the shuriken up into the air. In the moments that the shuriken descended from the air, Rikku fully faced Takuma and bent her knees.

‘She’s planning to make the first move,’ deduced Takuma. He immediately switched to a defensive stance because of the training gear weighing him down.

The shuriken hit the ground, and Rikku shot forward with full force.

‘She’s not that fast,’ he thought.

Takuma took a step forward the moment Rikku stepped into close quarters to close in the gap prematurely, attempting to throw her off by preventing a first solid, satisfying strike. Takuma threw in a jab as he shifted forward to get the first strike.

Rikku weaved her head to the side and threw a full-windup fist. The move was all but telegraphed, making it easy to block. Takuma used his hand to catch the fist, so he counterattacked, but when the fist hit his palm, a heavy force shot up his arm. It was so intense that Takuma’s elbow buckled under the pressure.

While Takuma was surprised, Rikku followed up with a fast uppercut aimed at his chin. Takuma barely evaded the strike, but he felt a draft of wind brush his face.

‘How can she generate so much force?’

As someone who used chakra augmentation as his bread-and-butter, Takuma could tell that the girl before him was not using any form of augmentation. That one punch was purely physical force, and it was at least as strong as one of his augmented punches. He had only faced another person capable of generating that much force just from their body—and that was his teacher, Maruboshi, who Takuma bet could take on jonin.

The distance between them was small, and Takuma would’ve leaped back to make some if not for the weight. He went for the alternative and went for a lead hook to Rikku’s face, but she bobbed her head in a dodge. The lead hook was just a setup as Takuma used his forefoot as a pivot and rotated his body to build momentum for a seamless spinning back fist into Rikku’s head as she rose up.

The fist struck her solid in the jaw. Rikku staggered from the impact, and Takuma took advantage of the situation. He didn’t have his usual speed, so making the most of every opening was paramount. Takuma unleashed a combo to do the most damage.

The spinning back fist flowed into a body shot followed by a palm strike to push Rikku away so he had enough space for a side-kick from his lead foot. He aimed for her face, but with the ankle weight, Takuma’s foot only reached her upper chest despite Rikku being of a short stature.

Rikku fell to the ground.

Perhaps it was the strong punch from Rikku that Takuma didn’t throttle his usual aggressiveness. He pursued the fallen Rikku to keep the pressure on. He jumped towards Rikku, tucked his knees to generate power, and aimed for the girl. He was going to use his full weight to dig both of his feet into Rikku.

Rikku rolled away to the side, and Takuma landed on the field, cracking the ground underneath his feet. Takuma turned towards her only to catch a foot on his chest. Once more, he felt an overwhelming amount of physical force that sent him flying into the air. He tried to control his posture in the air, but the weights made everything infinitely difficult.

Takuma wasn’t even given the chance to properly crash on the ground as Rikku chased after him. He managed to crash on his back but immediately saw a thin foot coming his way; he covered his face with his arms. He dragged the ground with him as he was kicked, his arms trembling from the impact.

Rikku was once again within range as Takuma stood up. She struck out with a heavy strike that rang the bones in Takuma’s arms. He felt them go numb. Rikku wasn’t particularly fast, but neither was he in his condition. She had him on the defensive as she attacked him with powerful strikes—he could only use his augmented strikes at certain times, but she was continuously assaulting him with equivalent force.

He used his vest and weights as guards to dull the force, but because they were so heavy, every other strike almost made him topple.

“Kameko told me you were strong, but this is disappointing,” said Rikku suddenly; her brows furrowed as though displeased that her expectations weren’t met.

Takuma felt irritation sizzle in his heart. Despite barely having exchanged a few words, Takuma roughly understood the girl’s personality in front of him. As Daiki had told him, Rikku seemed to be the straightforward kind, someone who said whatever was on her mind bluntly without any tact. He didn’t dislike such people, and he was somewhat experienced with the kind as Masaaki did that too occasionally, but this girl…

“Fine then,” he said. “I hope you aren’t a glass cannon.”

It had been a while— and even though he was trying to adapt his combat style to not take as much damage, even if it meant losing out attack opportunities— he switched to ‘Scars’ mode.