Chương 344: CH_9.29 (344)

Campbell stepped back as he watched the wooden training sword miss his neck. It was a predictable swing of an amateur who had just started his journey with kenjutsu. His sword sat limp by his side in hand as he simply dodged and evaded Ratel's swing. His lessons with Ratel were over; he no longer had the obligation to teach him. But now, he was Ratel's squad leader—and continuing their kenjutsu training served as a good way to develop a relationship and find more about him so he could better manage him.

"The sword is not a stick or a baton, so don't use it like that," Campbell said as he moved backwards while Ratel chased him before jumping up to avoid the vertical sword sweep coming for his shins.

"It may cut like a kunai, but it's longer, heavier—making it a different beast altogether. Listen to what the sword is trying to say by feeling its weight as it guides you." Ratel pulled back, his torso raising as though he was about to slow down, but he dipped his shoulders and charged at him even faster than before. Campbell clenched the sword, ready to use it at a moment's notice as he moved around the aggressive swings.

He was approaching the limit of how much he could face without using the sword as part of his defence. Even though Ratel was a kenjutsu amateur, he had a solid taijutsu foundation, was confident in his movements, and had a sharp battle instinct along with eyes trained to observe his opponents. Even though it was all being dulled due to his poor skill with the sword, Campbell was finding it hard to resist his impulse to use his sword to parry or block.

'Gosh, this is scary.' He saw a look of intense concentration in Ratel's eyes. He could tell the boy was blocking out everything else and solely focused on him. It was dangerous to fight like this because it opened Ratel to attacks from any third party—but this was a one-on-one training spar, and he could tell that this type of concentration was working. Ratel darted on his feet, skipping back and forth in both directions while he feinted with his sword.

Two weeks ago, he moved like a utility pole because he wasn't used to simultaneously moving on his feet and swinging his sword. But here he was, trying to bait him while keeping on the move. Campbell decided to switch things up. As Ratel moved in for an attack, his sword that had been lying dormant in his hand moved like lightning for Ratel's chest, who was taken by surprise and hastily moved his sword to block.

He didn't pressure him and let Ratel recover and make the next move, but the moment he raised his sword, Campbell parried it, destroying all his momentum.

"You have to do better than that," he said. Ratel narrowed his eyes as a calculative look appeared on his face before he charged at him, his feet cratering the ground as he jolted forward. Campbell raised his sword to block the attack, but the ground cracked again as Ratel changed direction to approach him from another direction.' Smart,' Campbell thought calmly as he followed Ratel with his eyes. Instead of backing away, he took a step right toward Ratel.

Their swords struck each other, and as a sharp crack resonated from the impact, Ratel was the one who was forced back with surprise and vexation crossing his features. A shinobi's combat style was a product of their experience; kenjutsu was no different. Ratel's sword aimed to be fast and overwhelming. It was a product of his training with weighted gear. He was focusing on two avenues of training: explosiveness and endurance. Explosiveness involved the speed at which he could use his strength.

He wanted to sprint faster, jump higher, bound longer, punch harder, change his direction in milliseconds, and perform dynamic movements by increasing his body's output and utilising force quickly through space and time. Endurance was the ability to exert force against a form of resistance repeatedly. It was displayed in activities that required a relatively long duration of muscle tension with a minimal decrease in efficiency. Essentially, he wanted to last longer without gassing out.

According to Ratel, he was in a phase where he was focusing on explosiveness. He was forcing himself to move as fast and forcefully with as much intensity as he could, which took an exhausting effort when he was carrying massive amounts of extra weights—it drained him exponentially faster, leaving him unable to even hold a conversation during or after training. Each spar was an opportunity to train his explosiveness. His sword moved fast and often.

It was greedy for momentum and despised any lull as though stillness was a sin. Furthermore, because he knew he would exhaust himself quickly, he aimed to finish fights quickly by bombarding his enemy without stopping. Even though Ratel hadn't gotten the feel down, Campbell could tell that when his kenjutsu improved, facing him would feel suffocating. At the moment, it was greatly flawed. Even if Ratel got ten times better at kenjutsu, Campbell could still see himself decimating him within a minute.

But that was fine. Progress was rarely linear. Just like how weight training was influencing his kenjutsu, something else would influence it later on—and a combination of different influences would create something potentially great that only belonged to Ratel. Or it would all clash and collide against each other, creating something that would actively hurt his combat capability, making him a poor kenjutsu user. Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

All Campbell could do was guide him, believing that Ratel would be wise enough to see his errors and knowledgeable enough to find the correct way. Campbell had once destroyed his kenjutsu thrice, where he had spent three months to a whole year at being a shadow of himself—and he didn't think he was past experiencing it all over again. Progress was not linear. As long as he wanted to get better—tried to innovate—there was always the risk of crumbling the castle he had built from the ground up.

"But let's fix the problem in front of us," he whispered to himself. While taijutsu gave Ratel a solid foundation, it also was a detriment for his kenjutsu. Hand-to-hand combat required one to get in close to strike, but using a sword allowed the wielder to have an amount of range to strike from—but it also could be said that the sword needed some space to operate properly.

Campbell stepped away, and owing to his combat experience, Ratel instantly gathered himself for his next attack, quickly flowing into a chain of strikes that smartly were aimed all over the body. He sliced at the upper arm before going down to a stab at the hop and then aimed up at the chest, trying to force Campbell to move his sword over great distances to force an opening. It would've been an effective tactic if not for Ratel's sloppy kenjutsu. Ratel didn't stop and continued attacking.

As he pulled his sword back for a stab, Campbell erased the distance between them by stepping forward. Now, Ratel didn't have the room to fully extend his arm to put power behind the stab.

"You need to readjust your sense of distance," said Campbell as he held his sword blade against Ratel's neck for a moment before stepping back.

"You're dead. Now what?" Ratel breathed heavily as he raised his sword in a double-handed grip and began a full-front assault. Campbell defended with his sword, and every time Ratel brought his sword back for a swing, he stepped forward to close the distance so Ratel could never get in a satisfying swing. All the while, he sneaked in light counterattacks that would've been lethal if he had been serious.

"You're dead again," said Campbell.

"I know you're tired, but think about it while your brain still has oxygen." Ratel grunted in irritation but didn't rush in like always and stayed silent while breathing like he was addicted to oxygen. He raised his sword for a basic horizontal strike, and as Campbell stepped forward to not give him space to swing down, Ratel took a wide step back, maintaining the distance as he swung down.

"Good," Campbell nodded as he easily parried the strike before lightly kicking him in the chest, making an exhausted give up and fall to the ground. As Ratel noisily panted on the ground while watering the grass under him with his sweat, Campbell said, "Taijutsu and kenjutsu are different. They share similarities, so you can use your experience to get a leg up—but you must find the things that must be abandoned and rebuilt anew."

He didn't expect a reply because he knew Ratel's windpipe hurt each time he breathed in.

"... What should I do when I reach the labour camp?" asked Ratel after three minutes of silence as he caught his breath.

"He probably wants to trade in the information to reduce his sentencing," Campbell responded without thinking as he stared at the new death-seal tattoo on Ratel's arm.

"Anytime anyone offers information, regardless of if they have anything real, it is because they want something in return. Your guy probably wants to get out of wasting his good years working in forced labour. But don't offer him anything until you know he has something useful. Word travels fast. If people hear that ANBU lie, they would be cagey about sharing stuff. It probably doesn't matter if one guy does it, but imagine ten operatives thinking they're that one guy.

Our reputation is that we don't make deals easily, so if he doesn't give something concrete, we walk away without looking back." The two trash mail reports about the same claim gave it legitimacy—but it could still be nothing. Campbell had seen cases where people used an untrue rumour they heard over drinks as leverage. He had heard stories of desperate people clinging to anything in their reach that might seem false to almost everyone, but distress and despair twisted people's minds.

"What if there's something there?" asked Ratel, wincing as he moved his body.

"If there's something there, we look into it."

"We?" Campbell sighed.

"I hope you learn soon that you can't do this job alone. But if you want to hear it, okay—you will remain as this case's lead as long as you don't screw up, or I get an order from above to transfer the case." Although Ratel had not been part of ANBU for long, he was here talking like every other operator—territorial and paranoid. Ratel nodded.

"This is your first outing. Have you memorised the cover story?" asked Campbell, doing his job They were "employees" of Ironwood Protection Company. Whenever they left on a mission outside, they needed a cover story in case someone—friends and families—asked about their out-of-station travels. Those stories were prepared before the trip, and the procedure required them to memorise them before they left the village.

"I'm going on a courier job, transporting a storage scroll to the Haturocho Valley. I will be staying in shinobi travel quarters for a day before travelling back," Ratel recited the story the staff had given him. The cover stories were based on some level of truth. Because Ratel was travelling to Chibumi copper mines, the cover story had him go to Haturocho Valley, which was only a quarter-day journey from the mines.

He would live in a place owned and operated by the Hidden Leaf, so they also weaved that into the cover story.

"Alright, I'm done. Anything else you want to say?" Ratel asked, still lying down on the ground. Campbell looked at him. He wanted the trash mail claim to be true because it would be good for their squad to have a new case. It would look good if they found something in the trash mail while other squads looked over it. Some part of him wanted to tell him to 'find' something that would give them enough motive to go into the Maizuru Quarters to conduct an investigation.

"Travel safe," he said. Ratel was new and hungry; he wanted to establish himself in the unit and saw this case as an opportunity. He didn't want to flame those feelings by implying something he couldn't take back.

"Alright, I'll be back. Hopefully, with good news," said Ratel.

"Good news would be this thing turning out to be a false alarm," Campbell reminded.

"Of course," Ratel said before weaving the hand seals that dissolved the shadow clone. Ratel had left the village earlier in the morning. Campbell watched the smoke from the clone thin into the air. It suddenly felt strange that he had been talking and training to a clone. They were rare because of their chakra requirements.

He didn't have enough chakra to use a shadow clone effectively because splitting his chakra in half sounded terrible for his combat style—even if he doubled his reserves, it still wouldn't make sense.

"But damn if they aren't useful." He couldn't imagine how much free time he would have if he had two of himself at work. At first, he wondered why Ratel wasn't using a clone at work, but then he guessed that the clone was being put toward "self-improvement."

"Good for him," he said as he got up, ready to return to the office. He liked his training sessions with Ratel because they gave him an excuse to spend some time with his sword—time he otherwise would've funnelled into work.