As he struggled to get up, Takuma knew he wouldn't eat properly for at least a week. The bastard with the fake smile had done a number on his stomach—all of him, really. He flinched and whimpered in pain. The pain was simply a symptom; the main problem was the cause:strenuous movements with cracked or broken ribs could further damage his body, and strenuous was the only way to move his body currently.

When his swimming vision settled, Takuma took a score of his surroundings before looking for the designated location at the edge of the pit where iryo-nin were stationed for emergency care. He needed to get there or catch the attention of a roaming iryo-nin—he was practically useless in his current condition.

Takuma finally looked at the bastard he had blown up. The man was kneeling on the floor, his body burned and bloody. He was trembling like a leaf in the wind, with his mud-stained face twisted in agony. He looked up at Takuma with fury burning in his eyes—that was the realest thing the man had done in the two minutes they had known each other.

They stared at each other momentarily before Takuma started to move away. The blonde bastard didn't chase or throw a kunai towards him. Takuma kept an eye on him, but he wasn't worried; neither of them wanted to fight each other in their condition—it was a mutual decision to leave the fight and get themselves patched up.

———

.

Imamura of the Hidden Cloud dragged his feet through the battlefield. His skin had suffered high-degree burns and he was losing blood at an alarming rate. He wasn't in danger of dying, but the "Hidden Steam" boy had done a number on him with the explosive tags—if not for the quick action of ripping his tank top off, his body would've been torn apart by the explosion.

He had underestimated the boy. He hated to admit it, but misdirecting him by biting his ear to plant explosive tags on him was a smart move.

Imamura had noticed the boy when he dropped himself between a group of their forces without any support. The boy started to pick off the grunts one-by-one. If that wasn't bad enough, the chaos the boy caused allowed the Hidden Steam side to take out more grunts. Things became ridiculous when he watched them get caught in a genjutsu and start taking each other out.

He isolated the boy before he caused more trouble. Imamura couldn't allow the pit to be taken away as his career depended on Hidden Frost's, and therefore the Hidden Cloud's, hold on the pit to extract the gold out of the mines. He would be promoted to Tokubetsu Jonin if he kept the pit safe until the Land of Frost had pushed their border significantly into the Land of Hot Water so that the gold pit wasn't in immediate danger of attack.

Imamura should have already been promoted to a Tokubetsu Jonin a couple of years back—but a mission under his leadership had gone south and a jonin's kid on his team had died. It wasn't his fault that the kid couldn't do his job as a decoy but the old jonin took it out on him.

Imamura's promotion was pulled and he was stuck indefinitely as a chunin despite the mission's partial success. They said it was his fault for not preparing properly and assigning inappropriate responsibilities to members who weren't equipped for it.

No one wanted to go against an old jonin with lots of influence, and suddenly, Imamura found his career in the gutter with no possibility of a promotion. So, when the war between the Land of Frost and the Land of Hot Waters came along, with Hidden Cloud supporting Hidden Frost, Imamura saw it as an opportunity. He pulled in all of the favors he had, persuading those who owed him, and somehow netted himself a post at the Gojiro Gold Mine.

It was an important asset for the Hidden Cloud as they were taking fifty percent of all output for protecting the mines for Hidden Frost. As long as Imamura did a good job, he would be promoted to Tokubetsu Jonin—his career would have a second wind, and if he leveraged his situation right, the old jonin wouldn't be able to obstruct him anymore.

He wanted to make jonin one day and this was only a tiny obstacle to overcome, a bump in the road.

While he made his way through the battlefield, Imamura felt a cold flash across his nape.He jumped ahead in a forward roll to evade a flurry of shuriken that covered the spot he was standing at.

Two Hidden Steam shinobi dropped from above and surrounded him on either side.

Imamura clicked his tongue and raised his hands in defense. He moved to the side in an attempt to put his two assailants in front of him, but they moved with him, keeping themselves on either side so that he wouldn't be able to see them both simultaneously.

"What, scared of facing me alone?" he spat.

They chuckled and one of them unsheathed a pair of short swords. He immediately weaved hand seals. His focus was broken when he heard the sound of clinking metal and looked toward the other man to see him release a swinging chain sickle. Imamura ducked to evade the sickle coming for his head—but in doing so, his focus scattered and he lost the progress he'd made on the hand seals.

Before he could restart, the sword-wielding man charged. Imamura threw a volley of shuriken at him before turning away with a kunai in his other hand to thwart a second throw of the chain sickle. The sharp clang of metal against metal echoed. Imamura's chest throbbed from the impact. He wanted to spit to get rid of the taste from his mouth. His condition wasn't great and fighting two opponents wasn't the most ideal thing for him to be doing right now

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

'I can defeat them—'

Imamura caught a glow of yellow and red around his shadow on the ground. He jumped to the side to dodge a searing pillar of fire—but it followed him, forcing him to keep moving despite the pain assaulting his body. He could see them coordinating, forcing him to move according to their plans.

His plan of making quick work of the two men changed to fleeing to a position where backup would take the load off his back.

When the fire ninjutsu ended, the two enemies dashed towards Imamura with their weapons held out. He bit the inside of his cheek and flew through hand seals. Chakra filled him before turning into concentric waves of lightning that danced between him and them. It was a desperate ploy to gain some time so he could put some distance between them, which he did, but it was for naught.

"AaH—!"

The chain sickle cut clean through his thigh, only nearly missing the bone. Imamura sagged to the ground, but he desperately rose to move ahead. Before he rose his head properly, the other enemy slashed his short sword across his chest. He stiffened when the pain registered.The jingle of a chain rattled behind his head. He barely felt the cold prickle of the blade before the sickle removed his head from his body like grass from its roots.

———

.

Takuma lugged himself across the battlefield. He took the shortest path he could afford while resorting to stopping occasionally and even crawling near bodies to avoid attention. It was slower than he liked, but Takuma continued to work his way towards the iryo-nin, hoping they were able to follow the plan and were in the pre-decided spot

"Oh, fuck!"

He ducked under a stray stone boulder that almost took his head off and broke into a run, knowing he was in a danger zone with high activity.

His eyes followed a building-sized lion made entirely of lightning ramming into the place where, assumedly, its target stood, ripping everything around it to loose debris. Takuma stood frozen in his place, a shaky breath escaping him. The jonin were finally picking up the pace. He watched a car-sized bird fly into the lion before exploding in a mass of fire that created a shockwave so strong that it knocked Takuma off his feet—and he was nowhere near the two chakra monstrosities.

'I need to hurry!'

He returned his eyes to the corpse-littered path ahead where a woman crashed a few meters in front of him. He recognized her as an ally shinobi, having seen her in passing a few times in Camp Banana. She struggled to her feet and jumped to the side— a wise decision as another woman flew down and dug her feet into the ground with force. She wore Hidden Frost colors like everyone defending the pit—just as their side donned that of the Hidden Steam.

Takuma watched the two women fight, and his ally was clearly losing the fight. She was injured; there was a gash in her left shoulder, and from the looks of it, she was left-handed. It was never good to have one's dominant taken out.

He silently took out a scuffed golden bell from his weapons pouch and carefully inched towards them while ringing it. He made a point to move slowly, and stay out of their vision. Even though they were on flat ground, a battlefield was an assault on the senses, making it common to miss out on things.

He spread his chakra through the bell, layering it within the shockwaves.

Ding!

The bell rang while the two women wrangled against each other, too consumed by the fight to notice his genjutsu. The shoulder injury was clearly bothering his ally; she was being pushed and forced on the defensive.

'Come on, just a few more moments,' Takuma thought. He could hear his breathing in his ears, impatience bubbling underneath the surface.

The enemy kunoichi stabbed the Hidden Leaf kunoichi in the side and kicked her in the abdomen. She fell on her back, with the enemy kunoichi dashing towards the prone woman with a dripping kunai in her hand.

'Fuck!'

DING!

The enemy kunoichi froze up with her kunai pulled high above her head, ready to strike. She trembled as though struggling against invisible bindings. Her body trembled as an expression of fear and anger twisted her frozen face.

Genjutsu: Golden Bell Jutsu

Takuma broke into a full-speed sprint, bearing the pain and risk. He had to be quick as he hadn't applied enough chakra, and genjutsu was already fragile. It wasn't particularly strong anyway but now, it could break at any moment without her releasing it. He took out a kunai but as he reached the two women the genjutsu broke, and the enemy kunoichi blocked his kunai with her own. She forcefully pushed Takuma back and tried to turn that into a lethal heart stab—which Takuma barely side-stepped.

He charged his leg with chakra and swept the enemy kunoichi's leg out with an augmented kick. The kick pulled on Takuma's abdomen, sending pained lances racing across his torso. He bore through it and mounted the fallen woman, pinning her hands above her head to stop her from resisting so he could put her down.

The kunoichi struggled and managed to free one of her hands and punched Takuma in the face. Takuma held on—but then she punched him in the side, which made Takuma crumple and drop his kunai. She hit a place that sent spikes across his entire body. The enemy kunoichi noticed her progress and went in for another punch, but before she could swing, the Hidden Leaf kunoichi grabbed the arm and pinned it back to the ground.

"Hurry!" she yelled.

Takuma fumbled for the fallen kunai as the woman below him thrashed to get free and pierced her neck. He freed the kunai and stabbed her again, dragging it across her throat. He waited, alert, watching her face, feeling her body below him—and only after she went limp did he let go.

Takuma fell to the side, breathing heavily, while his hands lightly rested on his stomach. Blood dribbled down the side of his mouth and his face was twisted in pain.

'One moment, just one more,' he said to himself. After taking deep breaths to prepare himself, Takuma got up, swaying so much that he almost fell. He walked to the Hidden Leaf kunoichi and put his arm under her shoulder.

"Get up, come on," Takuma said as he pulled her up.

"Thank you," she barely managed.

Takuma didn't reply and continued to move forward one step at a time. The 'medical station' was just a small distance away. Even though he was considerably slower than before—he had already covered most of the distance on his own.

A sound entered Takuma's ear, and he looked up to see a massive sphere of fire, larger than the building-size lion, soaring through the air above his head, which then slammed into the pit's walls. It exploded, sending huge debris airborne. A cluster of boulders flew right in their direction. Not only that, but the explosion also caused a landslide, and Takuma was close enough to get buried under a mass of rolling rocks.

"Fuck me!" He put the kunoichi down and started weaving hand seals for Earth Style: Earthen Dome—he didn't know if the ninjutsu would work, and if it did, they might still get buried.

However, halfway through, Takuma felt something slither around his stomach, which sent more pain up his body—but in the next second, he was streaking through the air and weaving around the debris.

He looked down to see a snake's body wrapped around him. The kunoichi also had a snake thicker than his arm wrapped around her torso. Takuma looked up to see the snakes disappearing into the wide sleeves of one Mitarashi Anko.

"What a terrible time to get injured," she said.