Takeshi was surprised by Kaiji's answer and said, "It's just a spar, you don't need to go all out."
Kaiji replied, "I don't just want to spar with Ryū. I also want to see how much I've improved."
This was true.
Afterall, for the past few months, all of Kaiji's missions had involved fights only against bandits, rogue mercenaries, and wandering samurai (rōnin).
These enemies were generally weaker than even ninja academy trainees and newly graduated Genin.
Besides his first mission, where he and his team met a rogue ninja (nukenin), Ryun, from whom he got the Earth Wall Jutsu scroll—
Aside from that, no such tough fights had happened in other missions.
Also, he did missions with other Genin, so even those easy enemies were handled with much ease.
So, despite all the training and improvements Kaiji had gained, he lacked real battle experience.
Now that he had a chance to spar one-on-one with Ryū, the same person who had beaten him in the graduation exams, he truly wanted to see how much he had improved.
He also wanted to gain some experience.
Plus, Kaiji knew that Ryū was the student of Pakura, an Elite Jōnin.
He had been trained by the professional ninja, unlike Kaiji, who mostly trained himself.
"Alright, if you want to go all out, then do it," Reeku said, reassuring them. "If I see any danger to either of you, I will step in."
With Reeku's promise, Kaiji took off his body weights.
Ren, seeing Kaiji take off his weights, asked, "Huh, you've been wearing weights all this time?"
Kaiji glanced at Ren, and with a smirk, he said, "The grind must always go on, my friend."
He then takes a scroll put from his pouch unrolled it to took out his chakra metal sword.
Ryū also grabbed kunai and shuriken from his pouch and took his stance.
Takeshi sighed lightly and thought, 'I hope they don't use Explosion Tags here, at least.' then in a loud voice, he said, "Begin!"
Under the eyes of the other Genin, a Chūnin, and a skilled Jōnin, Ryū showed amazing speed that normal eyes couldn't able to follow easily.
Reeku was surprised and said, "Oh, his speed is really quite fast. Even many Chūnin cannot use Body Flicker like this."
Renji stood beside him, nodded, and said, "He indeed has some talent in Body Flicker, but he also has some flaws in it."
Saito asked, "What flaws?"
Maki explained, "He cannot properly use any Ninjutsu or Genjutsu at such speed.
He can only use weapons and Taijutsu strikes properly and still needs a lot of training in this."
Renji added, "Yeah, even though he has improved in Body Flicker a lot, he still has this flaw, with also little lack of control, though not too much."
Ryū, with his speed, instantly closed the gap between them and struck with a kunai.
Kaiji was also shocked but quickly got over it.
He was in a spar; he could not lose focus.
When Ryū's kunai came close, Kaiji blocked it with his sword.
He could not see Ryū when he first rushed towards him.
But when Ryū came close, he saw his movements without much effort.
Kaiji kicked him in the gut, sending him back a few steps.
With a single hand sign done twice from his free hand, he used Wind Clone Jutsu and Earth Needle Jutsu.
His clone rushed at Ryū and attacked him.
Ryū faced it head-on and threw shurikens at it, making it disappear right away.
But then, the next moment, six sharp needles made from ground sand came out and moved toward him very fast.
His eyes widened slightly but quickly used Body Flicker to dodge them.
But when he stopped, he felt the ground beneath him become less stable and began to shift.
'Shifting Dunes Genjutsu,' Ryū noticed and made a hand sign, getting out of the Genjutsu. "Kai!"
The next moment, he saw Kaiji with his sword, close to him, about to slash horizontally.
Again, with Body Flicker, he dodged and moved back.
But Kaiji this time also moved toward him with the Body Flicker Technique.
Kaiji threw his sword into the air above and quickly made hand signs, "Wind Release: Dust Cloud!"
A thick cloud, 2 meters wide, formed from the sand around and surrounded Ryū, blocking his sight.
Ryū also quickly made hand signs, "Wind Style: Gentle Breeze!"
A soft but wide gust of wind came from his mouth, pushing the dust cloud around him away.
Kaiji caught his sword back.
He immediately moved behind Ryū.
With a firm grip on his sword, he moved it toward Ryū's neck.
Ryū felt it and quickly used Substitution Jutsu, replacing his place with a small rock a few meters away from him.
Kaiji's sword hit the stone and clicked his tongue. "Tch, I was so close."
A few meters away, Ryū took a deep breath.
Wiping the sweat from his forehead, he felt for a moment that Kaiji might actually cut his neck.
He thought, 'Looks like with Body Flicker, I can only run away. Pakura-sensei was right. I need much more training in this.'
Kaiji looked at him and said, while taking a stance with his sword, "I haven't fully learned it, but this should be enough for now."
Ryū and everyone focused closely on Kaiji.
Kaiji focused his wind chakra on his sword.
A clear white cutting aura surrounded the blade, making it sharper.
Takeshi, from a distance with others, said with a hint of pride in his voice, "Ho, Kaiji has learned swordsmanship, huh? He really improved a lot after graduation."
Reeku shook his head and said with his keen, observing eyes, "He didn't just simply learn swordsmanship. He has trained very hard in it, look his grip is firm, which no beginner can have.
And with the way he is enhanceing it with Wind chakra he must have very good chakra control, and he might have spent hours practicing Kenjutsu for months, I suppose."
Kohaku, hearing this, nodded and asked, "But even then, Ryū can just dodge it, even though Kaiji can catch Ryū's speed, he cannot easily match his speed. So what's the point of enhanceing bla—"
She gasp, her words halted, remain unfinished.
Because the very next moment, Kaiji slashed his blade.
The chakra coating of wind around it slashed very fast toward Ryū like a projectile, but at a much higher speed.
Its sharpness was not like a normal projectile.
But the most shocking thing was that Kaiji had changed its path at the last moment.
Ryū, who was also getting ready to use Body Flicker, thinking Kaiji would come toward him, was left stunned.
Though he again used Body Flicker, trying to dodge, but he failed due to this sudden surprise.
It slashed his left bicep.
But Ryū was safe.
It only cut the upper part of his left bicep.
Kaiji watched and thought, 'I need a lot of improvement here too. It's hard to control despite my quick chakra infusion on the blade.'
"Aw," Ryū groaned, covering his bicep where blood started to come out.
But he did not think about his injury.
The spar was not over yet.
He saw that Kaiji was momentarily lost in his own thoughts.
He made hand signs and shouted, "Fire Release: Four-Finger Flare!"
A small cone-shaped fire aura surrounded his right palm, except for his thumb.
He released a quick, superheated wave, a meter wide burst of fire toward Kaiji.
Kaiji came out of his thoughts.
A wave of fire, only a meter wide, was coming toward him.
He was not worried but quickly made hand signs, "Wind Style: Wind Cutter!"
He did not have time to infuse and use his sword slash.
So he used a basic wind Ninjutsu.
But he used more chakra, as Wind is weak against Fire, so his wind Jutsu needed to be stronger.
A thin blade of wind shot out and cut Ryū's cone-shaped fire wave in two.
It passed by Kaiji's left and right and in the middle, Kaiji remained unscratched.
Kaiji then thought, 'What was that Jutsu? I didn't find any D-rank Fire Jutsu like this in the Library Archive.'
Even though Kaiji had not tried any other elemental nature Ninjutsu, he had checked many E-rank and D-rank ones.
But he could not remember a Fire Release Jutsu with the name 'Four-Finger Flare Jutsu'
Others had the same questionand asked Reeku and Takeshi.
However, Renji and Maki, who were Ryū's teammates, knew about this Jutsu.
Reeku said, "I will tell you later. Let's watch their spar for now."
Kaiji also did not dwell on it for now.
He rushed toward Ryū.
But hiding from Ryū's sight, he secretly cast, 'Genjutsu: Dancing Dust Motes!'
For Ryū, dust arose from the ground.
He thought Kaiji had used Dust Cloud again, and he once again used Gentle Breeze to push it away.
But his eyes widened when he saw that the dust around him didn't budged.
He realized, "Genjutsu?"
He quickly tried to get out of it.
But the next moment, he saw that Kaiji's sword moving toward his throat and stopped only a few inches from his Adam's apple.
Sweat formed on his forehead.
Ryū raised his hands in defeat and said, "I lost."
Kaiji smiled and took a step back, swiftly putting his blade back in the scroll.
"Kaiji won?"
This surprised Maki, Kohaku, Sayo, Shōko, and even Hiroshi and Ren, who initially did not expect Kaiji to win.
•••