Ino watched as Ryoko walked up past her, a dreamy sort of wide-eyed expression on her face as she looked around as if her eyes were working for the first time. For a moment, the girl locked gazes with her and smiled with a friendly wave, as if Ino had actively called out to her somehow.
"What the hell was that?" Ino asked, returning the wave nervously.
Shikamaru, too far to hear the exchange between Gai's students and Kakashi's, shook his head. He was left simply trying to figure out why draining the girl of chakra simply made her stronger.
He did watch as the girl walked up the steps, however, with Naruto cheering her on enthusiastically.
"That bastard," Kiba muttered as he noted one of the animalistic Tanigakure stepping forward into Ryoko's path.
Ino narrowed her own eyes, noting the leering expression on both of the Musk and forgetting about Ryoko's displayed prowess for a moment.
The Hokage watched as Ryoko cheerfully back up toward the balcony and then towards Ibiki.
"She's either inaccurate or merciful," the interrogator said. "Most likely a combination. It takes far more strength to pulverize the rock than it does to destroy the human body."
Sarutobi nodded and smiled as he bit into his pipe and puffed on it thoughtfully.
"She's chunin level at the least," Hokage agreed. "In terms of pure fighting skill. Perhaps low jonin."
Ibiki nodded.
"It is good that she is fighting for us," Ibiki noted. "If she remains simply a mercenary or even becomes a genin, there is no problem. She lacks the will of a leader, however."
The Hokage nodded.
Ryoko paused, feeling slightly troubled as she felt another wielder of chi move to cut her off from moving forward.
"Saotome," the man said with a smile. "A true example of Saotome blood in a twelve year old girl."
"H..hai," Ryoko said nervously, starting to move around the man.
"You would make strong sons indeed," Caper said, bringing a flush to Ryoko's face.
"Hai!" Ryoko said, blinking. "Th..that is my purpose, to find a st...strong man to continue the Saotome family name."
For once, however, in saying it, she didn't feel the same sort of rote repetition as usual. In fact, agreeing with this man sort of made her feel a slight illness. Nor did it feel like a normal challenge, leaving her normal thirst for battle...confused.
The clear beautiful chi flows, or at least her perceptions of them, were slowly and slightly twisted as she felt the chakra of her Kishu-Osore rise up for no reason she could discern.
The man stepped back from her as he felt the chi coming out of her turn just slightly heavy and twisted. Orange flickers replaced the blue of her eyes.
"Hey! Ryoko-chan!" Naruto called out, stepping around the Musk without noticing the man. "That was great! You were awesome."
"Ano..." Ryoko said, turning toward Naruto as the orange flames died down. "Uzumaki-san! N..no, that w..was not something that..."
"Ahh you were great," he said, grabbing her and pulling her forward, past the Musk.
Kiba watched as Naruto grabbed Ryoko and dragged her away from the pervert, his eyes off of the screen as it selected another set of names.
"Bastard," he muttered.
Shino glanced from Kiba toward his other teammate, Hinata, standing closer to Team 7 and her cousin's team. He'd come this way to keep Kiba company, for all that the dog boy seemed to forget his presence, but it did seem odd that Kiba had chosen purposely to come so far from where Ryoko was while focusing on her so much over the past few days.
Down below, the sand girl was tearing apart the Sound genin who'd lost an eye to the test some time earlier and he kept a watch on the skills of both, though especially the skills of the woman with the fan.
The one-eyed dark-haired girl, Kin, stood no chance with her jutsu against the woman, even as Temari was clearly holding back. And the fight ended with her slammed brutally against a wall, another injury on top of the others that she'd suffered.
Shino glanced upward toward the board to see who would come next as the Sunagakure kunoichi arrogantly returned to where her teammates stood.
"Next match," Hayate called out. "Kiba Inuzuka against Caper of Tanigakure!"
Hokage watched as Kiba jumped down with Akamaru and looked across toward the Inuzuka's opponent.
"So, another shinobi against another chi-adept," he said. "We'll see how this fares."
Ibiki nodded quietly as he took up position to watch the fight himself.
Kiba frowned as his opponent took in him and his dog.
"A dog?" he asked. "This will be a joke."
He laughed dangerously.
"Hmm," Kiba said. "I've been wanting this since I first saw you sniffing around where your not wanted."
"Are you staking your claim then, pup?" he asked laughing. "A tame puppy standing up to a full grown wolf?"
"Yeah, we'll see which of us is tame and lame by the time this is done," Kiba warned.
Hayate glanced between them and frowned as he explained the rules again and stepped back.
"Begin!"
Caper charged forward within the lighted center of the arena where the yang was strong and he could tap it extensively.
Akamaru and Kiba responded immediately dodging aside and circling around. The Inuzuka landed crouched on all fours and immediately started gathering his chakra into his jutsu as his opponent circled out around towards another vector.
"Beast Mimicry," he called out taking the opportunity given by his opponent's maneuvering. "All Fours Jutsu."
And then he charged forward, hands reaching for smoke bombs behind his back.
Akamaru zipped along on another line pacing Caper along the other side as Kiba dashed inward to cut the other canine warrior's path off, lashing out with smoke bomb as he came in close.
"Not enough!" Caper shouted as he redirected his motion and twisted around paying more attention to the flows of chi advertising intent now that his vision was obscured.
He shifted aside to dodge as a clawed hand slashed close by and kicked out to clip the legs of his opponent, sending one of them tumbling out of the smoke cloud.
Caper smiled as he caught sight of Kiba's form tumbled down and righting himself, only to be surprised as another line of hostile intent struck in from behind and a small pair of jaws clamped down on his arm and pulled into a tumbling roll.
Akamaru let go before the Musk could reach his feet and leaped over toward where Kiba was standing up as well.
"You're going down, bastard," Kiba snapped angrily.
"There's not a dog alive that can take a true wolf," Caper said arrogantly, entering stance again. "Especially not some pup like you. Or even two pups."
Ryoko watched as Kiba exchanged another set of blows with the man that had approached her twice now about being a Saotome. She bit her lip briefly as the Konoha ninja flew bodily out of the smoke cloud, but now the two warriors were moving into close combat and pressing each other viciously.
Akamaru slipped in whenever and where ever he could, working with Kiba efficiently as always. A clawed hand slashed out, drawing blood from the Musk who responded with a twisting attack motion that Ryoko felt probably ended in a ball of invisible yang seeking paths throughout Kiba's body.
Hinata winced at the side as she watched with her Byakugan still.
"That one is another chi-adept," she said in surprise.
Hinata turned about to look at her own jonin, Kurenai, standing by Shino further down the balcony and then towards Gai nearer to her.
"This one fights similarly to Saotome," Shino commented, with a difference.
Kurenai nodded, remembering what she could of Ryoko's spar with Naruto and her own fight just a moment previous.
This one did fight in similar lines and spirals, but there was a difference. There was no sense of waiting in this man's style, if he wasn't moving there was an awkwardness to him and whenever he opted to dodge, he moved high.
Whenever he was forced to stop, he almost visibly lost all his momentum as adverse Ryoko who fluctuated between motion and stillness as well as different directions.
Akamaru whined as he saw Kiba cough up a small breath of blood in the wake of that blow, but stepped in to knock their opponent off center and give Kiba a chance to recover.
The Inuzuka reached into his pouch and pulled out a pill biting down on it for himself even as he tossed one out toward Akamaru.
The Musk snarled and lashed out at the little dog, sending Akamaru skidding across the arena.
"Akamaru!" Kiba shouted bitterly, though instantly saw the dog's fur turning red as he stepped up to his feet.
For a moment, the Inuzuka was tempted to leap over Caper and rejoin Akamaru that way, but instead he darted aside to the edge of the arena and dashed across low to the ground.
"Running in the shadows won't help you!" Caper snapped chasing after him.
Kiba smirked and gave a short leap turning to face the Musk following him and releasing another smoke bomb to confuse his senses as Akamaru leaped up towards his back.
"We have to show this 'wolf' what it means to take on a dog of Konoha," Kiba snapped, Akamaru barking enthusiastically in response. "Man-beast clone!"
Caper pushed out of the smoke bomb to see two Kiba's charging in towards him and smirked as he moved to face them. Blood streamed as claws cut into him, but he responded with his own strikes, sending both Kiba and the transformed Akamaru scattering through the air.
Both recovered and landed on their feet, digging large furrows in the stone as they did so and watching as Caper spiraled away from him, taking the circular root to come back around to Kiba and Akamaru's position.
"What the hell?" Kiba wondered. "Why is he going all the way around like that."
Ryoko cocked her head in confusion and blinked.
"He only has understanding of yang?" Ryoko wondered.
"What's that mean?" Lee asked.
Neji took in what he'd heard from his sensei and what he'd seen of Ryoko fighting.
"He only focuses in one direction," Neji said.
"Ha..hai," Ryoko said. "He does no...not kn...know how to t..take the paths of yin to maintain momentum."
"So he chases the same yang to keep momentum," Gai said. "He can be predicted and herded."
"His style is incomplete," Kurenai noted to Shino.
Asuma nodded.
"He is all action and no waiting," Asuma agreed.
"Hmm, he's going to be in for it," Shikamaru said with a smirk.
"An art in its infancy," Hokage commented to the officials around him, glancing up toward Ryoko. "Ryoko and Kodachi have the complete art, even if Ryoko is incompletely trained and Kodachi is handicapped."
"This match shall be decided now," Ibiki said. "The Inuzuka is figuring it out."
"That's the flaw is it?" Kiba asked with a vicious grin. "You're just a dabbler!"
"Dabbler!" Caper demanded angrily twisting about and leaping into the air a prodigious distance and coming down as a golden aura rose up at the edge of his down-speeding body.
"Ano..." Ryoko said, shaking her head as the chi became visible. "Sl...sloppy."
Kiba easily avoided the edge of the focused chi as he and Akamaru came in from every direction at the landed Musk, waiting to see which direction he would take.
When the Musk tried to dart in one direction, Kiba and Akamaru, instead of letting him move, darted into his way and cutting him off above and on the ground.
The confusion and frustration on the man's face was evident as Kiba made simple spoiling attacks rather than full blows that he had been. Enough to make him stumble backwards and lose the flow of the yang he drew on for power.
"What's the matter? Feeling a little like a sheep in wolf's clothing?" Kiba demanded laughing as he lashed out with a sweeping low kick as Akamaru lashed out with his claws higher up. "Shouldn't a wolf know how to herd a prey?"
Caper growled and leaped backwards, slow and ponderous by comparison.
Kiba smiled as he shifted forward and Akamaru came up on his side. The moment they were waiting for was there, the enemy was slowed and off balance and they had the space and the advantage.
"Gatsuga!" he shouted.
Ryoko watched as Akamaru and Kiba launched into the finished Fang over Fang technique and burst into a whirling pair of spiraling fury. One of them, she wasn't sure which, slammed into Caper from above, another came right in from behind and struck him again.
The strikes came again and again as Naruto watched from the side.
"Yeah! Go Kiba! Go!" Naruto shouted. "Awesome!"
Ryoko, however, frowned and her hands clinched the bar in front of her.
Finally, the two Kibas came to a stop on the ground, flanking the battered Musk as he fell out of the air and thudded to the shattered stone floor.
Everyone watched carefully for a moment as Caper started to stir and raise, but then stopped, falling back to the ground.
"Winner, Kiba Inuzuka," Hayate declared.
Kiba smirked and then dropped to his knees catching his breath as Akamaru also turned back to his dog shape.
After the medic ninjas made sure that there was nothing that needed to be attended to right away, Kiba started making his way back up the balcony towards where Shino and Kurenai were, stopping for a moment as he passed Team Gai, Hinata, Ryoko and Naruto.
"Way to go, Kiba!" Naruto shouted.
"Congratulations," Hinata said to her teammate.
"Yeah, I showed him better than to step wrong around here!" Kiba declared boisterously, preening as he did and looking toward Ryoko.
"H...hai," Ryoko said. "I...it was a very good match."
She stopped and looked back toward the board for a moment.
"What's wrong now?" Kiba asked wearily.
"Ano..." Ryoko said. "I...it's nothing."
"Just tell me, damn it," Kiba said. "If someone's pissed you off, you don't have to be so polite about it. You weren't before."
"Di..did you hold back?" she asked.
Kiba frowned and wondered where in that fight Ryoko got the idea that he was ever holding back.
"Against me?" Ryoko clarified.
"What?!" Kiba exclaimed. "No, no!"
"Then why did...didn't you use the gatsuga against me?" Ryoko asked.
"I barely finished it after getting to this place while waiting for you guys!" Kiba protested.
"Ano..." Ryoko said quietly. "Kiba-san. Next time, d...do not hold back."
"I didn't..." Kiba sighed and shook his head. "Nevermind, fine, next time we fight I'll make sure to use every technique I have against you."
"Wai!" Ryoko declared happily.
Kiba paled and looked toward Hinata and Naruto.
"I just..." he said.
They nodded.
"Again..."
They nodded.
"Ano?" Ryoko asked. "Kiba-san. I...is there something wrong?"
"No, no," Kiba said dully. "I'm just very tired."
"Oh...h..hai," Ryoko said, flushing and then bowing. "Sumimasen."
He took a deep breath and slumped over toward Shino and Kurenai.
"That was a very good match, Kiba," Kurenai said. "You did very well analy...is something wrong?"
"I...I think I just accepted a rematch challenge from Ryoko," he said with a hopeless expression.
Kashou stepped out of the gates and walked away from the training ground, the chunin escorts not far behind him. Once he reached the town, they mostly dropped back, losing interest in him. The other forfeitor, Kabuto, had left on his own path almost at the same time.
He stopped and smiled as he felt a presence.
"Kinnosuke Kashou," a voice said quietly. "Master of the art of passing the price on to someone else. Sorcerer. Thief. Murderer."
"Oh, someone here knows me," he said with a smile, turning about to see a young girl, almost a woman, standing behind him. "You've grown."
"Hai," Mokya said stepping forward. "You are working for the traitor Musk now?"
"Utsuro Kamae," he said, noting the subtleties of her stance. "You're training with either Anything Goes or the Redeemed School."
"Redeemed," Mokya said firmly, flexing her hands. "Iyoku Initiate."
"Iyoku, and what is your ambition, Mokya Ono?" he asked.
"I wish to extract payment for a past debt," Mokya noted.
"And do you have the Strength and Freedom to make your Will real?" he asked. "Without sacrificing Compassion or Responsibility?"
"Shall we see?" Mokya asked slipping forward. "Kachuu Tenshin Amaguriken!"
Mokya was interrupted by a dark haired form that darted between her and her target. Her amaguriken was diverted aside mostly though she felt many strike the woman that had put herself in the middle.
"Oh, Kodachi of the Black Rose," Kashou said without shifting position.
"Mistress?!" Mokya called out as Kodachi reached to clutch her side where some of the technique had struck her. "Why did you..."
Kodachi held her hand back toward Mokya and turned toward Kashou and exhaled a cloud of glittering sparks that wiped over the form of the man they faced, who merely smiled before dissolving in the sparks.
"Blind but not sightless," the image said in a crackling voice just as it vanished.
"Booby-trapped chi phantom," Mokya said, ashamed. "I...I should have known a sorcerer like him wouldn't put himself out to risk the way do, Mistress."
Kodachi nodded at her, frowning and gestured toward her assistant's form as she breathed in the cloud of living chi back to her system.
"I'm fine mistress, but...I should attend to you," she said quietly. "I did not mean..."
Kodachi waved off the concern as Mokya came to her side to examine the level of injury she'd inflicted on her own mistress.
See other episodes by Thrythlind
(Posted Tue, 21 Sep 2010 10:42)
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