The mess hall was warmer than usual and everyone was eating slightly better-tasting food with smiles on their faces. The restriction on alcohol had been lifted until Camp Banana welcomed the new arrivals who would replace their fallen numbers. People mingled with each other, exchanging names, stories, and information about their lives at and before Camp Banana.

There was a rowdiness present that was usually missing in the base. The monotonous clink of cutlery and hanging boredom were swept away as people opened up to each other. The night was young, and Camp Banana had enough stories and booze to keep it going early in the morning.

At a table in the mess hall, half of Team-9 sat with full plates of food. Daiki had his back to the table as he chatted with his friend Hajime from the neighboring table, Rikku was absorbed in her food, and Kameko gazed at the socializing crowds.

“Hey! Are you guys having fun?” Anko half-danced toward the table with Iori joined to her hip. Both had alcohol in their water canteens and looked as though they were having a merry time with their blushing cheeks and wide grins.

“Pace yourself,” Kameko warned them.

“Buzzkill,” Iori laughed and took a swig from her canteen.

Her hand was no longer fixed with a split; it had healed enough to be moved down to light bandaging for minimum support. She had already started physical therapy to regain function. There was still no telling if Iori’s fingers would make a complete recovery, but she was no longer pessimistic and was taking it one day at a time.

“Where’s the workaholic?” asked Anko, looking around for the missing team member.

“Speaking of the devil.” Kameko pointed with her chin.

Takuma walked toward the mess hall in a fresh set of clothes with his hair wet. He looked like he had just taken a bath.

Anko frowned lightly. She asked, “Was he training?”

“That’s all he does these days,” Daiki looked away from his friend to answer Anko. “I thought you put him to it. I don’t want to question your methods, Anko, but I do believe that rest is just as important. I suggest that you decrease his load.”

“I did ask him to do things, but…” Anko gazed at Takuma, who broke into a jog to reach them as he entered the mess hall. She sparred with him once a day, but had stopped accompanying him for morning training—he had gotten the hang of it enough to do it alone.

“This is…so different. I was stopped and checked at the gate like a criminal when I first came here. There was no grand welcome for me,” Takuma said when he arrived.

“You arrived alone. At least you got a guide to show you around,” Kameko replied. “When we came here, we had to do a major clean up and set up the base. It felt like I was intruding on someone else’s place for weeks.—there were family photos on the walls and everything.”

“And I will never forget your lovely attempt to boot me from the team, Kameko. That was a wonderful welcome,” Takuma smiled when she scowled and walked past the table. “I’m hungry. The grub smells different today.”

“He’s not in a pleasant mood these days,” Daiki muttered as he gazed at Takuma, loading up his plate in the distance.

“Really? I think he’s always like that,” Kameko scoffed.

“Well, you two don’t get along spectacularly, Miss Kameko. I’ve lived with him long enough to see that he’s not like this normally.” Daiki looked at Anko. “He has been like that since the meeting with Toridasu and Shirakumo. Did something happen?”

“…Who knows,” Anko replied.

Maybe it was time for her to have a chat with him.

———

.

Takuma had come to appreciate the feeling of fatigue after a good day of sweating and hard training. It was a marker that he was going to have a nice and deep sleep at night—the best kind of sleep.

“You guys pulled out all the stops for today, eh, Kai?” Takuma chatted with one of the kitchen staff.

Kai laughed as he refilled the fried chicken tray. “The food tastes the same every day, Takuma. You’re the only one complaining about it.”

Takuma smiled. “Because the rest of them lost all hope that food could be good. See, I’m the newest, been here the shortest. I wasn’t defeated by you guys. But now, I’m not the newest, I have all these new folk, and I will lead them to All Blue. We will succeed. The food will become tastier than ever before!”

“All Blue?”

“That’s the dream, my friend.”

“I don’t get you sometimes,” Kai said, shaking his head and walking away with the empty container.

“I get that a lot,” Takuma chuckled and moved towards the buffet line. There was a group chatting near the tables, blocking his path. “Hey. Move, please,” he said.

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The man blocking his path cleared the way for Takuma, who stopped in front of a heated tray of soup. As he ladled some into a bowl, he caught the group’s conversation.

“So, they called me Bishop, right? That was my fighter name,” said a man who seemed to be the center of the conversation as everyone was facing him.

The man who had given Takuma space interrupted the conversation. “Sorry, I didn’t catch that. Bishop, fighter name, what?”

The man who was telling the story repeated. “As I was saying. None of you are from the Hidden Leaf village, so you might not know it, but there’s this underground fighting scene.”

Takuma subconsciously straightened up. He stopped stirring the soup with the ladle and eavesdropped on the group’s conversation.

“It’s called the Ring. Shinobi—genin— fight each other in a closed dome for money and mission points. People pay to watch and bet on the fights. There’s a huge gambling scene on it.”

Someone in the group asked, “And you were a fighter?”

“Yeah. I went by the name, Bishop. One of the best before I had to retire.”

Bishop.

Memories of being thrashed on the bloody arena floor until he was beaten into unconsciousness froze him on the spot. Takuma closed his eyes and he could hear the crowd’s roaring as their favored fighter thrashing him, with the best he could do being defense.

Takuma slowly turned to face the group and saw the man telling the story. Takuma didn’t recognize him, which meant he was one of the new people who had arrived this morning. The man proclaiming to be Bishop was short, just like Takuma recalled. He had imagined what Bishop would look like behind his mask, picturing him as the ugliest man alive—but the man looked average from all accounts with thin, slanted eyes, a nose on the smaller size, and a broad smile.

He wasn’t Scars, the premier fighter, when he fought Bishop. He was still in the taijutsu category, barely settling into his first contract and had finally started to win a few fights before they matched him against Bishop, who had retired after having an impressive record in the ninjutsu category.

Why?

Because Bishop, who shouldn’t have been allowed in the Ring, wanted to blow off some steam and with an easy opponent to push around.

The fat fuck called the Ring’s boss had chosen Takuma as the sacrificial lamb to appease Bishop.

In all honesty, Takuma never thought he would meet Bishop. He didn’t think the man would talk about the Ring so openly—to be fair, they were far away from Hidden Leaf—and Takuma didn’t have the time to go seek out Bishop’s identity so he could have his revenge. But now, the man stood before him as though served on a silver platter, and the desire to exact it was so very tempting.

He was no longer that scrawny unknown fighter called Scars who was cut or stabbed every fight. He was sure that if they fought now, things would be very different. Maybe everyone would enjoy a good fight as an entertainment piece at the welcome event. He could just let go one time and act on that impulse. What would be the harm? Wasn’t there a time-honored culture of hazing in places like these?

It would be something everyone would look back at as something fun. Not for everyone involved but it would be fun… at least for him.

But as those thoughts churned, he caught Toridasu in his vision. The jonin was laughing with a larger group. He recognized the expressions on the faces of the rest of the group; they were brown-nosing him to get on his good side. Takuma didn’t blame them; it was a natural thing to do if one had any ambition in life.

In fact, Takuma felt that he should be there with them, trying to do the same. It was clear that Toridasu wasn’t pleased with how he had tipped the first domino on the long chain that was Gojiro Gold Mine operation.

His eyes then drifted to the table where his team sat, and he was half-startled to find Anko staring at him. Takuma calmed down and sighed as he thought of her. Things were already difficult for her and he had made things worse—and she hadn’t said a single word to him about it. Anko was a very lax leader, and while Takuma wouldn’t run a team like that,he had no doubt she was a good leader who’d make sure to have his back.

Which was why Takuma turned back and resumed filling his plate with food. He didn’t want to get Anko and the team into more trouble. It was okay if he didn’t get to beat the crap out of Bishop with all of their peers and superiors watching.

Now that Takuma knew who Bishop was, if he ever felt frustrated, he could get the man in trouble with the Police Force.

That would be a different kind of fun, but fun nevertheless.

———

.

Takuma wrestled with his conflicting emotions as he processed the sight in front of him.

“Hello, my name’s Masumoto Shohei. I’m the new chunin leader of Team-3.” Bishop, or Masumoto, introduced himself along with his team. “We are looking forward to this joint exercise between the teams to be a great learning experience.”

The new shinobi had only arrived the day before yesterday, and Masumoto Bishop had set up a joint sparring exercise with Anko’s Team-9. It was surprising and almost alien, as no other team had ever asked for a joint exercise with Team-9 because of Anko. Other teams held joint exercises regularly, but Team-9 had not been part of any of them even once.

It made sense that a new chunin was the one to request it, given Anko’s past.

“The same goes for us,” Anko smiled.

Masumoto gazed at the team before asking Anko. “You’re missing one of your team. Is everything okay?”

“He should be here.” Anko glanced at Takuma. “Where is Daiki?”

Takuma said, “He should be on his way. Said he needed to go to the bathroom… Oh look, there he is.” Takuma pointed to Daiki running towards them.

“I apologize for being late. I hope I didn’t keep everyone waiting,” Daiki bowed to both Anko and Masumoto.

“Not at all,” Masumoto smiled.

“Don’t sweat it. Get in line,” Anko said to Daiki.

Daiki hurriedly stood beside Takuma and immediately whispered into his ear. “You were right. He’s doing it to make an impression on Toridasu.”

‘Knew it,’ thought Takuma, turning his unamused eyes to Masumoto.

Takuma was skeptical of the joint exercise offer. They hadn’t kept it a secret, and the entire base would technically know they were conducting a joint exercise. He was sure that after Masumoto got the gist of Anko’s past, he would rescind the offer and make some excuse, but he didn’t do that—so he asked Daiki to poke around to see if something was wrong.

And Takuma was right in his doubt.

Masumoto wasn’t doing the joint exercise for a ‘learning experience’—he was doing it so he could prove that he and his team were better than Anko and Team-9. Masumoto must’ve heard that Toridasu wasn’t the biggest fan of Anko and was trying to please him by trouncing Team-9 in the joint exercise as a ‘token offering’ to the overlord.

“Alright, let’s do it then,” Takuma said.

“What?” asked Daiki.

As both teams prepared, Takuma went to Anko and whispered what Daiki had gathered to her.

“Are you sure?” Anko asked.

Takuma nodded.

“Okay… and what do you want to do?” she asked.

“I think we might be able to make another move for that precursor mission,” Takuma said.

If Bishop was trying to trounce them, then he was opening himself to having the situation turned against him.