"What are you doing today?"
Takuma raised his head from his feet to his three migrant teammates, who were looking at them with curious(or dubious) looks.
"Training for the tree-walking practice?" said Takuma, his tone twisting in the end. It was the second day after Yoshio adjusted their training regiment to add one and a half hours of tree-walking(which they did on a wall).
"It has 'practice' in the name, you know," Ai made air quotes. "It's the training exercise to improve our chakra control and walk on any surface... People don't train for a training exercise; that doesn't make sense."
Takuma raised a finger as he said, "Actually, that's not true. People who can't do a pushup can be taught to do the pushup motion against the flat wall, then at a slight angle, then on the floor with bent knees, basically making incremental progressions to the actual pushups. It works with a lot of exercises. I'm doing the same here."
"That's not the same! What you mentioned is raising the difficulty..."
Nenro noticed Ai fold her arm and step forward, her expression turning sharper. He intervened by placing his arm between Takuma and Ai. "What Ai is trying to say is if training for tree-climbing will involve some actual climbing?" Nenro asked.
"Huh? I climbed yesterday. Got to the top and down," Takuma had scuffed his hand badly by all the slipping and dragging his hands against the grainy concrete— nothing the shady guy couldn't fix, but still pretty painful after an hour and a half of dragging his hand against hard concrete.
"With legs, you dummy," said the usually cutesy girl of the group.
Nenro rubbed the top of Ai's head, squishing her neck down a bit. He said to Takuma, "You did something so different yesterday and somehow completed the challenge on your hands. It was startling. So when we saw you doing something else again, we got interested. Maybe it would help us complete the challenge quicker?"
"Teach us!" Masaaki's voice in the short distance rattled the other's ears.
Takuma shrugged. He had no qualms about telling them. They were his teammates, and if he wanted to win the mission points, he needed his team to be the first to complete the challenge.
"Okay, so listen, yesterday after training—"
"Wait, let me get Taro," Ai interrupted and ran off to get their last teammate. She returned with Taro in tow, who flailed his limbs frantically as he was dragged on the ground.
Masaaki threw his head back in laughter. Nenro sighed and shook his head. "You could've politely asked him to come with you," he said.
"No, you didn't, you wild woman!" Taro raised his protest.
"I asked you once, but you started grumbling. I didn't want to waste time because I knew there would be no end to it. We only get ninety minutes of practice for this exercise. You left me no choice."
"No choice? No choiCE?! You—"
Takuma didn't need to listen more to decide he was siding with Ai. In the few weeks of working closely with Taro, and what he knew from the time before, Takuma knew there was no one more lazy than his ex-classmate. Taro was lazy incarnate. He didn't outright slack off and not complete the tasks assigned to him— only he tread the thin rope by merely doing the minimum amount to get by without pulling himself into trouble. And he was very good at it.
"Alright, both of you fight later," Takuma clapped his hand to get their attention to him. "I already told you about the sticky-hand climbing yesterday." The moment he returned from his successful climb, everyone crowded him about what he was doing. He had been polite and told the gist of his approach so as to not burn any bridges with the group because even though they were separated into teams, a lot of the time was spent together with the group. Afterward, he took his group aside to share some details.
No one had given the sticky-hand climbing approach a try, though, not even his teammates. He didn't blame them; he technically was with the least amount of progress.
"Today, I'm doing a simpler version of the tree-climbing practice," Takuma continued. "Like the pushup example," Ai furrowed her brows, "I'm doing what you guys are doing but on a less complicated surface, which is flat ground," he pointed down.
He had yet to climb the wall using the standard tree-walking style. Instead, after thinking about it for a day, he came up with another step to make progress more painless as possible.
"... By walking on the ground, you can take your time to apply the grip with chakra, eliminating the complexity that comes with a vertical surface," Taro, who was still on the ground, said while staring at Takuma's feet with his brows furrowed ever so slightly. "You don't have to worry about falling to the ground while you regulate the chakra between your soles as you take a step forward."
"Exactly!" Takuma pointed at Taro as that was precisely the crux of the simpler version. "I can do it slowly as gravity isn't hungry to pull me back down to the ground"— as the saying went, what goes up eventually comes down— "and I can take it as slow as I want while everyone else is trying to sprint up." He continued and pointed at his feet. "I'm trying to make every step stick to the ground without... this... happening!"
Takuma pushed the chakra to the sole of his front foot. The topsoil burst under his foot, and at the same time, he was thrown back onto the ground, unable to retain any semblance of balance.
He sat up with a groan. The feeling of being thrown back was annoying. "This exercise is perfect for getting a sense of how weight and force distributes between the two legs as you walk. If you can do it on the ground, you would have an infinitely easier time doing it on the steepest of walls."
"It makes sense," Taro nodded.
"Right?" Takuma smiled. "Start with both feet sticking to the ground, then release one foot and raise it up while adjusting chakra for the increased weight on the backfoot. Plant the forefoot on the ground, secure it with chakra, and only release the backfoot when you have affirmed the grip on the forefoot... and then repeat the process."
"Let's give this a try," said Ai. Nenro and Masaaki quickly agreed. All of them opted to do the 'ground-walking' without trying the hand climb like Takuma. Nenro even said that directly doing it with feet made more sense and involving hands seemed like an additional unnecessary step.
Takuma didn't agree, but he also didn't argue. Who was he to tell them how to do things? The hands exercise worked with him; who knows if it would work for everyone.
"Hey, where are you going?" Masaaki called when he noticed Taro walking away. Everyone looked to see Taro going back to his original spot.
"Back to the wall," Taro jutted his chin to the tall concrete structure.
"You're not doing Takuma's thing?"
"No, you guys go ahead; I'll stick to the normal method," Taro said.
"What the hell?" Masaaki frowned heavily, sounding upset and confused. "Didn't you say that Takuma made sense? Why're you not doing it then?"
Taro stopped and turned. He looked disinterested in the conversation with his lidded eyes and hands slipped into his pant pockets. "I did say it made sense, but never did I say it was correct...."
"No one has tested Takuma's approach before. Hell, even he himself hasn't tested it before. He just came up with it after yesterday's session, who knows if it would work. The logic made sense, but a lot of things make sense on the surface, but not all of them actually work. I would rather try out an approach everyone knows works than try something whipped up by a rookie genin with less than a day's worth of thought."
Taro glanced at Takuma. "No offense, but given your past performance, we both know you aren't exactly reliable regarding this stuff."
"You! How can you say that?" Masaaki sounded upset but looked more confused. Even Nenro and Ai looked uncomfortable with the confrontation.
"Everyone, let's not fight," Nenro stepped forward, the mediator in any conflict in the team and group, "let's talk about it peacefully."
"He's right," Takuma suddenly said. The trio looked at him in surprise. "Everything Taro said is right. We don't know how well my progress on the ground would translate on the wall. Even if it does work, who can say it is worth it from a time standpoint. What if just grinding it out on the wall from start to finish is faster than my approach of gradually increasing difficulty."
It upset him. Taro's words about his reliability hit a place he didn't want to admit hurt. He might be on the same rank as every one of his peers in basic training, but his reputation remained the same. He was still Takuma, the genin who had failed two graduation attempts, the genin who despite being a graduate of the Konoha shinobi academy wasn't given a chance to test against a jonin, the same person who had lost all fights but one, the genin who had barely inched into genin rookie... he was still all of those things... none of them had disappeared.
Takuma clenched his fist until he was white knuckling and looked up at Taro. "Still, I will continue on with my approach," he said.
"You do you," Taro shrugged before walking away.
Takuma closed his eyes for a moment to calm his emotions down before opening them to look at his feet. He summoned the two energies in his body and melded them together to create chakra that flowed from his feet to the farthest part, the soles of his feet.
He looked up at Nenro and winced when the chakra that reached his feet didn't create a strong enough sticking grip and fizzled out.
"... I think we're going through the normal route," Nenro said with pursed lips. His shining confident charm seemed to be dull in the moment as he matched eyes with Takuma.
Takuma nodded. Who was he to tell them how to do things.
Nenro walked away with Ai, who looked regretful as she followed her boyfriend. Masaaki looked conflicted as he looked between Takuma and Nenro and Ai; in the end, he walked after his academy friends with his head hung down as if he was guilty.
Takuma looked down at his feet and tried to mold chakra, but a hollowing feel stopped him. He knew what it was; he had felt it a lot in the past year. He was used to it. It shouldn't have bothered him. But who knew that after a few weeks in the company of a team with whom he spent most of his days, being all alone again would sting so much.
'Don't waste your time,' said a voice, 'remember you're trying to get stronger to survive— to thrive— you can't waste time worrying about others when you know how this world is and what's to come.'
He was right. Takuma had no time to waste. He had no special talents to rely upon or a clan to support him. He needed to do it on his own, and there was only one way to attain his goals— to work more than everyone else, and better than anyone else.
'—only you can guarantee your success—'
And thus, he molded his chakra.
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