…
They went again.
Ren launched forward the same way he always did, straight and fast, but this time there was more intent behind it. The first two exchanges had been feeling out. This one wasn't.
He closed the distance and threw a right hook that Murakami deflected with the staff's shaft, the impact ringing up the metal rod.
Before Murakami could follow up, Ren was already on the move with his body twisting into a low kick that swept toward Murakami's lead leg.
Murakami stepped over it and drove the staff's end down toward Ren's exposed shoulder.
Ren rolled away, came up on his feet and came back in the same motion.
The exchange that followed was quick and ugly in the way real sparring got when both sides stopped being polite about it.
Ren was relentless, every time Murakami created distance, Ren ate it immediately, refusing to let him settle.
He threw combinations rather than single strikes now, chaining punches into kicks into elbows, using his body as a single continuous weapon rather than a collection of individual attacks.
He was good. Better than the first exchange had suggested.
Murakami gave ground when he needed to, redirected when he could, and kept his staff moving in short controlled strikes rather than full swings, each one aimed at disrupting Ren's attacking structure rather than causing damage.
Ren absorbed all of it and kept coming.
"You're not going to end it?" Ren asked between exchanges, breathing slightly elevated.
"Not yet," Murakami said.
Ren grinned and threw a kick at his ribs.
Murakami caught the ankle with his left hand and used Ren's own rotation against him, turning the kick's momentum sideways.
Ren's body followed his leg and for a half second his back was exposed.
Murakami didn't take it.
He let Ren recover, reset, and come back.
From the tree line, Mio made a quiet sound. Sakumo glanced at her.
"He's reading him," she said.
"He's been reading him since the first exchange," Sakumo said.
She didn't respond to that.
Ren came in again, this time low, targeting Murakami's legs with two quick sweeps before converting upward into a straight punch aimed at his jaw.
Murakami stepped back from the first sweep, over the second, and let the punch come.
At the last moment he tilted his head exactly far enough for the punch to graze past his ear and in the space that opened, he moved, stepping into the gap left by the missed punch, drove his shoulder into Ren's chest and pushed.
At the same time, the staff came in low behind Ren's ankles, cutting off any chance of stepping back to recover.
With his upper body going backward but feet going nowhere, Ren went down.
Not hard, but cleanly and completely, flat on his back with Murakami standing over him and the end of the staff hovering an inch from his throat.
Silence.
"…Okay," Ren said, for the second time. Though this time there was considerably more weight behind it.
Murakami stepped back and lowered the staff.
Ren sat up slowly, brushing dirt from his elbow, and looked up at Murakami with an expression that had moved past surprise and into something more honest.
"You were waiting for that," he said. It wasn't a question.
"Since the third exchange," Murakami confirmed.
Ren was quiet for a moment. Then he let out a short and genuine, the laugh of someone who had just been outplayed and found it more interesting than frustrating.
"Good," he said, and stood.
He walked back to the tree line and dropped into the grass beside Sakumo, still brushing dirt from his sleeve. Sakumo handed him a water canteen without comment.
Mio unfolded her arms and stepped onto the field.
She walked to the opposite end at an unhurried pace, the calmness of her movements suggesting complete confidence in her approach.
She stopped at roughly fifteen meters and looked at him.
"Ready?" she asked.
"Yes," Murakami said..
She moved first.
Three shuriken left her fingers in a flat arc, spread across different heights.
Murakami angled his body and let two pass. The third he deflected with the staff, metal ringing against metal.
A kunai followed immediately, thrown not where he was initially, but where the deflection would push him.
He stepped left instead of right and it missed by a margin that was smaller than he would have liked.
She was already moving again.
She didn't stay in one place. The moment she threw something she shifted, changing position constantly, never giving him a fixed point to orient against.
She worked the field the way she'd described; controlling space, denying easy approaches, making every step he took toward her cost something.
He took two steps forward and a wire caught his foot.
Not a trap he hadn't seen, he'd noticed it when she shifted the third time, the faint glint of wire angled low across the grass. He stepped over it deliberately to see what it was connected to.
Three explosive tags detonated at knee height, far enough left of him that they weren't a genuine threat but close enough to push him right.
She was waiting on the right.
Her hands flew through a sequence of seals.
"Water Release: Water Bullet!"
A pressurized jet of water shot out fast and low, aimed at his legs.
Murakami slammed his palm into the ground.
A ridge of earth shot up from the grass in front of him, a meter high and wide enough to cover his lower body, and the water jet hit it and scattered.
He was already moving before the water dispersed, using the ridge as cover to close distance while she couldn't see his feet.
He came around the right side of it at a run.
She backed up, hands already moving through seals.
But Murakami wasn't about to let her complete the sequence as he closed the distance before she could finish, and in her desperation, she threw a kunai at close range.
Murakami turned his shoulder and it grazed past, drawing a thin line across his sleeve. He felt it but didn't stop.
His staff came around low, sweeping her lead leg, and when she stepped back to avoid it he was already at her side, the staff's end pressed lightly against her ribs.
She stopped building the technique.
A beat of quiet.
"That's mine," Murakami said.
Mio exhaled slowly. She looked down at the staff pressed against her side, then back at him.
"The earth wall," she said. "I didn't expect that."
"You controlled the field well," Murakami said, stepping back. "The wire was good. I saw it but not what it was connected to until the tags went."
She tilted her head slightly. "You saw the wire and stepped over it anyway."
"I wanted to know what it did."
She stared at him for a moment.
"That's insane," she said, without particular heat.
"It was low risk at that distance."
"The tags were at knee height."
"I was far enough to the side."
She looked at him for another second, decided she didn't have a useful response to that, and walked back toward the tree line.
Ren was already grinning when she reached them. "Well?"
"He's annoying," she said with a pout, sitting down.
"That's a yes," Ren smirked.
Sakumo stood from the grass, rolling his shoulders once, and looked at Murakami across the field.
Murakami looked back.
The training ground was quiet except for the wind moving through the tree line.
"My turn," Sakumo said.
He stepped onto the field without ceremony, one hand resting on the handle of the blade strapped to his back.
He didn't charge the way Ren had.
He stood roughly eight meters away and watched Murakami, and Murakami immediately recognized the quality of his gaze.
This wasn't simple observation; he was already analyzing, searching for a specific detail to exploit.
He was looking for the tell.
Everyone had one. The small signal that appeared a fraction before the body committed to movement, a weight shift, a breath, a change in the eyes.
Sakumo had seen enough fights to know that finding it early was the difference between reacting and anticipating.
Murakami gave him nothing.
Sakumo smiled slightly at that and drew his blade.
He came in fast at a diagonal angle, blade drawn and low, closing the distance before Murakami could set his footing properly.
Murakami brought the staff up to meet it, and felt the impact travel all the way up his arms.
Sakumo put some real weight behind his blade, using the reach advantage to test the defense rather than commit to it. The force traveled up the staff and Murakami felt it in his wrists.
He was fast.
Faster than Ren, faster than Mio, fast in the specific way that came from having built a style entirely around the premise that speed was the answer to most problems.
He didn't stop after the first strike. A second came immediately from a different angle, low this time, then a third pulling back to create distance before Murakami could capitalize on the close range.
The pattern was clear; strike, angle, withdraw, strike from a new angle.
Never staying in one place long enough to be fully read. The blade was always moving, always threatening from a direction that was slightly different from the last one.
Murakami matched the pace and kept up.
Noting the weight behind Sakumo's swing, he chose to redirect rather than block where he could, using the staff's length to keep the blade at range and stepping to angles that cost Sakumo time to adjust to.
The exchanges were shorter and faster than either previous spar, neither of them committing fully, both of them reading.
Then Sakumo found a gap.
A half-second where Murakami's weight was committed left and the staff was angled slightly out of position. The blade came in fast and clean toward his right side.
Murakami dropped his chakra into his feet and pushed.
The Phantom Step activated and the space he'd been standing in was suddenly empty. He appeared two steps to Sakumo's right, already pivoting, the staff swinging in a horizontal arc toward the back of Sakumo's knee.
Although shocked at the sudden speed, Sakumo's reflexes were sharp enough that he got his blade around to deflect.
The impact knocked the blade wide and the follow-through of Murakami's swing continued past it, the staff's far end coming around and stopping against the side of Sakumo's neck.
Both of them went still.
Sakumo looked at the staff touching his neck. Then at where Murakami had been standing a half-second ago. Then back at the staff.
"What was that?" he asked.
"A movement technique," Murakami said, lowering the staff.
"That wasn't a regular body flicker."
"No," Murakami agreed.
Sakumo was quiet for a moment, turning it over. Then he looked at Murakami with an expression that was somewhere between impressed and thoughtful.
"You held that back through the whole exchange," he said. "Used it once, at the right moment."
"It costs something," Murakami said simply. "Not worth spending early."
Sakumo nodded slowly.
From the grass, Ren called out. "So? Who won?"
Sakumo touched the side of his neck where the staff had been and said nothing for a moment.
"He did," he said finally, and sat down.
Ren was quiet for once.
Mio looked at Murakami, arms folded. "You held back the entire time."
Nobody argued with that and Murakami didn't see the need to answer, but he did. "It was a spar. Who uses their full strength in a friendly exchange?"
Ren sat up at that. "...Fair point actually."
"Very fair," Sakumo agreed.
Mio looked between the three of them, clearly unconvinced that the point was as simple as they were making it sound, but let it go.
The four of them sat in the grass for a while after that, the training ground settling into a comfortable quiet.
Ren eventually lay back and stared at the sky. Mio produced a small notebook and began writing in it.
When they finally packed up and left, Murakami fell into step beside Sakumo at the back of the group.
Neither of them said anything for a stretch.
Then Sakumo glanced at him. "That movement technique."
"What about it."
"I want to see it again sometime."
Murakami looked ahead. "Then get stronger."
Sakumo laughed, and didn't push it further. He understood.
Murakami probably still had more tricks up his sleeves and didn't see the need to use them until pushed to do so.
He glanced sideways at him and smirked. 'What an interesting friend.'
They walked back toward the village together as the afternoon light began its slow fade over the rooftops of Konoha.