As requested, a self-assessment of my own fight
The crowd had been in an uproar as Kiro stood in his battlefield, but that was probably due to another match which would be taken place. They were practically foaming in the mouth due to the matchup between Shiho Hyūga and Raiku Uchiha. A duel between the two dojutsu wielding, noble clans if the Leaf. There was pride at stake for the Uchiha clan. With the Hyūga Heiress having failed the previous round, all eyes were now transfixed on the supposed Uchiha prodigy. That may or may not have been overhyped by the crowd and papers advertising the event. While Shiho was respectable in her own right, she did not carry with her the status of Hyūga Heiress and so, this was a match Raiku could not afford to lose.
In a way, the attention placed on Raiku benefitted Kiro. Less eyes would be on a match of the unknown. While Kiro would prefer not to, if he found himself in a position where it was necessary to use his eyes, there was less of a chance of him being caught. Even so, the obnoxious clamoring for the Uchiha annoyed him slightly and it was like there was a dark shadow cast over his eyes as he gazed forward to await his opponent.
His expression seemed to lighten when Yan Xia Roulan finally made her appearance. The waiting was over and Kiro could finally focus on her instead of the distractions around them. Like usual, she held a serious expression and didn’t even say a word to him. He could respect it. On the battlefield, it was kill or killed after all. There was no room for the common exchange of pleasantries, unless one was comfortable enough to make an attempt to do of course. While Kiro would prefer not to harm a girl, he’d respect her desire to fight. Locking eyes with his opponent, Kiro instead opted for a generous gesture, or perhaps cocky one depending on the perspective.
“After you, Xia.” Kiro said in a calm tone, offering her the first move.
Here's where Kiro loses the initiative and he spends the whole fight trying to get it back
Village Hidden in the Leaf, Chunin Exams Arena – Day of the Exams
Sagisō
Rank 36 — Heavenly Skillful Star | Yan Roulan
Roulan—or rather Sagisō—nodded lightly in response to Kiro’s words but otherwise did nothing. Her eyes stayed trained on the proctor who had yet to give the signal for the match to begin.
When the proctor declared the beginning of the match, Sagisō immediately threw a scroll to the floor—one of her newest purchases in the leaf. As the scroll fell to the ground and unfurled, the script for 'Water' could be seen. With a pair of hand seals, Sagisō stepped on the scroll and unsealed it, causing oodles of water to emerge from the scroll as it seemed to store what was a pond-sized volume of water.
As the water began to spread around her Sagisō was already weaving hand seals in preparation for her next move, her chakra already flowing through her feet and into the water beneath her.
I look at this opening in hindsight and cringe because doesn't do nearly as much as it could've to capitalize on a free move.
It's kind of a flat opening that doesn't advance the fight offensive or defensively, it just lets her save chakra, which shouldn't have been a priority on turn one unless she intended to play the long game, which she doesn't do—and worse yet she doesn't even move from her position. This is almost worse than Kiro just giving a way the first move.
Roulan was not the only one who had been preparing for this stage of the exams. Kiro had come ready to blow this bitch up if he had to. The “bitch” being the stadium itself. As soon as the girl unleashed the scroll, Kiro’s hands were already above the seals on his wrists with three kunai in his hands. Two had explosive tags attached and were coated in gunpowder while the other was imbued with some electricity. By the time the water was just starting to spread out of the scroll, the three kunai would already be in the air, aimed towards the feet of his female opponent. The one in front was the lightning kunai, which would electrify the water Roulan was standing on and potentially her too. The other two kunai would land almost immediately after, which was when the explosive tags would explode. Even if the electricity didn’t activate them, they were still set to explode.
Originally, his aim with the kunai had been to force Roulan to move from her current position. Now he should be able to achieve the same effect while also destroying the scroll and her water supply. Even if she did somehow manage to get a jutsu off, the combined force of two explosions should be enough to instantly destroy it.
Of course, Kiro wasn’t done there. After he had thrown the kunai, he then summoned a fūma shuriken attached with a dozen explosive tags or so and connected to a wire. Should the explosions occur as Kiro expected them too, he would immediately throw the large shuriken upwards. It would be in an arc aimed to go over the area of the explosion before going down. However, it’s primary objective was actually quite simple. The girl just needed to see it. That’s because he had summoned two more kunai with his other hand. Just one of the kunai would seemingly be an actual a threat though.
Kiro would throw both after the fūma was launched, so when Roulan saw the giant shuriken, it would already be too late for her eyes. Thanks to the shuriken being thrown above the explosion, no matter which way Roulan avoided it, the smoke wouldn’t be able to block her from seeing the explosive weapon. With her eyes drawn to that area for just a moment, that’s when the kunai with a flash bang attached to it would enter her vision. The regular kunai would simply strike through the flash bang, activating it, before being deflected upwards and falling harmlessly somewhere near the outskirts of the arena while other one would just be sent downwards. As for the flash bang, assuming it even got to that point, Kiro would obviously avoid being blinded before continuing to go on the offensive, presumably with the fūma shuriken. After all, Kiro should be able to know which Roulan had gone if she chose to avoid the first explosion.
Le gasp, a shurikenjutsu combo that uses several smaller shuriken/kunai around a large fuma wrapped with bomb tags. Where have I seen that before?
Jk jk
Overall an excellent offense intended to counter, disorient, then punish the opponent. Very nearly wrapped up into one package, but seems too reliant on things going as planned. I'd take a stab and say Kiro was confident she'd counter the first move (the kunai and gun powder) and so had already gone ahead and set up the second move (the Fuma)
Village Hidden in the Leaf, Chunin Exams Arena – Day of the Exams
Sagisō
Rank 36 — Heavenly Skillful Star | Yan Roulan
She had expected bombs, her opponent had seemed awfully fond of them from their very first encounter and she had come prepared with a counter-measure. However, she hadn't expected the chance to use her counter-measure would come so soon or with such perfect timing.
As Kiro sent his shuriken through the air, Sagisō stomped—hard. The stomp served two purposes: one, it stopped the release of water from her scroll; two, it initiated the jutsu she'd just been weaving—Water Style: Spider Lily!
Like the petals of a spider lily, the water around her began to rise in tendrils, forming a wall of water in front of her. The area immediately around her and the scroll dried as the water was displaced to create this wall; meaning the lightning had little else to do but discharge its payload into the water wall—a payload which really should've been large if her opponent wanted to accomplish anything significant. Even if it had hit her, such a small discharge would be severely weakened after spreading across the water. However, it was still enough current to set off the sensitive explosive tags and balls of gun-powder that landed in the water soon after.
Her opponent had been very precise in his calculations and the resulting explosions decimated Sagisō's wall of water—exactly in the way she'd hoped he would; not enough tags to greatly evaporate the water but just enough to create a strong explosion that send water droplets splashing across the arena at blinding speeds. Water droplets that quickly and subtly narrowed into a scatter-shot of water-senbon as with a single hand-seal, Sagisō utilized her water-shuriken technique. She had been careful with molding her chakra, only molding the rough half of water droplets that weren't heading in her direction.
The end result was an explosively launched shower of water-senbon; a furious and painful rain, that would prove difficult, if not impossible to avoid. Even if Kiro developed the visual prowess to track each and every water droplet, it would be like trying to count drops of rain—an effort in futility; and, even if he had the eyes and the sense to only track the ones on a direct course with him, the water-droplets were just that—droplets, too numerous and too densely packed for there to be any hope of slipping a human body through them unharmed. If Kiro wasn't careful he would quickly be turned into a porcupine.
This point was exemplified as an explosion rang out above the field—the Fuma with its dozens of paper-bombs unable to avoid the hail of water droplets. Just one had been enough to cause it to detonate quite harmlessly in the air.
OOC I think I was overly eager to use a counter I had prepared and Kiro did play right into it, but hindsight is 20/20 and Sagiso had a much simpler counter that would've saved the water rip
IC it's a solid reaction but def illustrates the point earlier about Sagiso's opening move being very bad, it immediately put her on the back foot.
Kiro expected Roulan to attempt to defend herself somehow, however, to form a complete water wall in such a short amount of time seemed implausible. At the very least she should’ve taken some damage. Considering the explosion did happen, Kiro still did end up throwing the in a gradually upwards arc. At the same time, the water droplets that were sent by the explosion, which somehow failed to completely evaporate the water wall, were suddenly turned into dozens upon dozens of water senbon. This meant his shuriken wouldn’t get far before it would be pelted by the rain. Realizing this, Kiro resealed the kunai with the flash bang and hopped back while moving his arms to cover himself in attempt to avoid taking further damage from the large explosion.
When the explosion occurred, Kiro was sent backwards, tumbling over before flipping back up to his feet as he neared wall. When he stood up, there were visible scratches and some burn marks over his uncovered body parts. His eyes stared in the direction of Roulan, perhaps more annoyed that she had caused his clothes to be dirtied. The positive part was that the explosion had prevented him from being struck by any of the water senbon.
‘So that’s her strategy to deal with my explosions then. Damnit! This will be risky, but it seems I’ll have to start expending my chakra now.’
Throwing down the remaining kunai in his hand straight into the earth besides his feet, perhaps in frustration, Kiro then ran forward to retake the offensive before Roulan could while rapidly performing hand seals. Five balls of fire were then launched from his mouth. At the same he was spewing out the flames, Kiro pulled out five basic shuriken from his weapons pouch and tossed them into the flames as they spread. Each one of the shuriken were now hidden inside a fireball.
The boy had used Fire Release: Pheonix Flower Jutsu and all the fireballs were targeted towards the location of his opponent, except aimed in a manner where they would spread out like five fingers reaching out to grab something. After all, the main perk of this jutsu was that he could freely control each fireball. Yet, Kiro wasn’t finished. He would immediately follow up by pulling out three kunai, each enhanced with lightning chakra as well. Then he threw them directly at the girl. With their trajectory going straight for Roulan combined with the force Kiro threw them, the kunai would reach her before the fireballs, if not right through the girl assuming she was foolish enough to stay in the same place.
‘Let’s see you block this with your water. Youwon’t.’
:v
His offense reads like he might've had something in mind but hard to say since he abandons it to counter Sagiso's following move
Village Hidden in the Leaf, Chunin Exams Arena – Day of the Exams
Sagisō
Rank 36 — Heavenly Skillful Star | Yan Roulan
The proximity of the blast had blown Sagisō backward, forcing her to tuck into a roll until she was forced to a stop by the arena's wall. The spray of droplets had soaked her body before being evaporated by the heat of the blast. That layer of water had protected her from any serious burns but she had not avoided her fair share of scrapes and bruises; but, she had been able to track the kunai and anticipate the explosions, and as such, her recovery was not as haphazard as her opponent's.
Eyes flashing, the girl sprung upward to regain her footing while—hidden by her billowing hair—she released a flash-bang and began weaving hand seals. The flashbang had been thrown in such a way that it would be hidden by her body until she hit the ground. At that point, she would bend at the knees, storing energy in her tendons in preparation to spring forward with blinding speed.
If Kiro had been paying attention, the exact moment she bent her knees would be the moment the flashbang was revealed, peaking above her head, and he wouldn't be able to avoid its immediate detonation. If he had somehow turned away in time, then he would be blind towards the girl's movements while the blinding light behind her would provide her with the perfect cover.
Phantoms flashed forward, smears of speed as they raced past Kiro's attacks. These were basic clones and hidden inside their bodies were shuriken and attached to them were bombs and an additional flashbang. The spread of Kiro's fireballs would allow them to pass between the gaps. It wouldn't help that the boy was running forward as he would have even less time to react to these clones—and assuming he could somehow avoid the first flash, if he looked back to gauge the distance of her two-paper bomb clones, he would open himself up to a point-blank flash as light easily passed through the illusory clones.
Regardless, more important than the clones were the main body's actions. Rather than spring forward, Sagisō's real body had sprung upward, scaling the walls of the arena. In her hands was her water scroll—the scroll having been blown back with her in the blast. Estimating that the scroll only had about half of its water remaining she promptly swapped out for a fresh scroll. As she activated the scroll, she threw it in the air, sending a kunai chasing after it.
The kunai would nail the scroll to the wall at another section of the arena; but, as the scroll released its payload—a waterfall-like deluge from on high—it would drench the ground and Kiro beneath it, should he still be in its path. Hidden by the spring of water and dangling from the end of the kunai was another one of Sagisō's more recent purchases—a bomb. If Kiro had any way of seeing inside the clones, he would note that the bombs within them were also new additions to her arsenal, the same type of bomb.
Although she would've loved to press the offense even further, Sagisō was paying close attention to Kiro as the clones closed in on him. His actions would determine the order in which she detonated her tools.
Mmm, not much to say here. She already had her next move and Kiro's reaction mapped out, to the point where she was confident in not pressing the assault because she was sure what she'd done was already enough.
Kiro had been paying close attention to her hands, trying to see if Roulan would use a jutsu to defend herself that he didn’t even get a chance to see the flashbang due to it erupting as soon as it peaked out over her hair. Of course, the bright light enveloping the area around Roulan was still enough to get him to pause.
“Damn her!”
Fortunately, since he hadn’t been directly looking at the flashbang, but rather her hands, his senses weren’t as discombobulated. This meant Kiro was able to see the three clones earlier than Roulan might’ve liked. However, the light did help her conceal the items with Kiro being none the wiser.
“Clones? That’s not gonna help you!”
Right when she leapt into the air, Kiro redirected three of the fireballs towards incoming clones, thinking that they were real. Since he had been running towards Roulan at first, the clones would’ve been able to reach him faster. Conversely, his fireballs would be able to reach the clones faster, especially since they were aiming to pass through the gaps between the flames. Of course, his main focus was still on the girl in midair. He didn’t hesitate to send the remaining two fireballs at her. Well, it ended up only being one since Kiro ended up redirecting another fireball towards the scroll. The shuriken inside the flame would strike the seal on the scroll as the fireball exploded, destroying it. At the same time they were redirected, three shuriken laced with gunpowder, along with having an explosive tag attached to them, were summoned in his hand. Imbued with a sliver of his chakra, they were thrown immediately at Roulan’s trajectory.
He wanted to see how she planned to dodge or even block the fireball with the three dangerous shuriken following it not too far behind. Being completely midair meant she didn’t have much options to dodge what was essentially a faster fireball that could track her down. On the other hand, she could attempt to block with a makeshift water wall somehow, but Kiro was confident these explosions would be more than enough to evaporate most it this time.
In hindsight even if he was looking at her hands, he wasn't anywhere close enough to have his vision narrow in so he should've been totally flashed.
Kiro seems to have lost his cool, and for the last two moves has been hyperfocused on a water wall that'll never come u.u
Village Hidden in the Leaf, Chunin Exams Arena – Day of the Exams
Sagisō
Rank 36 — Heavenly Skillful Star | Yan Roulan
Sagisō clicked her tongue as Kiro diverted his fireballs, attempting to counter all her moves at once. The clones had been minor tricks so the virago paid no mind to them as the fireballs incinerated the ninja tools within. Three fireballs down with two remaining. The pair of fireballs split, one going after her and another after her scroll.
The latter she didn't worry about as she had already expected this reaction from Kiro. That was why she'd attached one of her new bombs to the scroll. As soon as Kiro's fireball was within range of the bomb, she would detonate it; the results of which would create a small cloud of mist that hung in the air, murkying vision from the arena floor from its sky-high walls. The misty explosion would send the scroll flying erratically, spraying its contents about in a wild spin that would cascade the arena below in a downpour of 'rain'.
Meanwhile, Sagisō would apply the same tactic to the fireball headed towards her. She withdrew three kunai tagged with paper bombs and threw them in a triangular formation. The bombs were spread out to cover a large angle in front of her and would detonate when they neared the fireball. The ideal outcome was the destruction of the fireball and the gun-powder-laced shuriken that followed it; however, even if Kiro controlled the shuriken to avoid her blast, she had used her explosions to block off the most direct route to her. This meant his shuriken would have to travel the long way around all three of her explosions adding on extra time that would make her escape all but assured.
As her feet touched the arena walls, chakra held her in place, and beneath the cover of the explosions and the spreading mist, Sagisō vanished as she used the mist-rain created by her scroll to enact the hiding in drizzle technique.
She raced along the arena walls, weaving hand seals—Water Release: Starch Capturing Field! Rather than at Kiro, Sagisō direct her jutsu into the air above the mist where the sticky water began to mix with and conceal itself in the make-shift rain. As the rain fell on the arena below it would turn sporadic patches of the arena into hidden glue traps of varying stickiness, greatly restricting movement.
More importantly though, as the sticky rain fell on Kiro it would glue his body parts together while also gluing him to the ground—crippling both movement and any further hand seals just long enough for Sagisō to nail with another attack. Pulling water from the air she had created a liquid fuma shuriken and within it was another of her special bombs.
Immediately capitalizes and makes a move to heavily restrict her opponent's movements. Neither he nor clone ever falls into any of these, but tis a good move nonetheless.
By now, Kiro had come to expect an excellent counter to anything he threw at the girl. She was quite skilled to say the least. Roulan ended up protecting her scroll by triggering the bomb she had attached to it. The ice bomb not only shielded the scroll from being destroyed, but also reversed the outcome Kiro had wanted. The scroll was sent flying, spinning out of control, and spewing out water in nearly every direction. Avoiding every single droplet was currently not very possible for Kiro, so he ended up getting some water on him.
However, the main thing he wanted to avoid was the cloud of mist forming near area of the explosion. Primarily the sticky water that was raining down from it. He figured the girl had launched her syrup jutsu into the cloud. Fortunately, Kiro was currently outside its range. Unfortunately, that wouldn’t last for long as the mist continued to spread. To his left, he could see the mist being formed and spreading in a certain direction. Logically, all the mist would gradually spread at the same speed, but the mist near the wall was simply spreading faster for some reason. It didn’t take long for the buy to figure out what she was up to. He glanced briefly behind him, then turned fully to the left in the direction a majority of the mist was spreading in.
‘I can’t afford to spend my chakra so recklessly right now, but I need to start applying some pressure. Her intent is too cover the arena in a mist. In that case...’
Kiro began moving closer towards the side of the area where mist was quickly spreading as he quickly performed the hand seals. The mist was rotating around the arena wall at a decent pace, so Kiro would have to time his next attack accurately. With the hand seals having been completed, Kiro stopped and brought his head back before launching a large stream of fire from his mouth. It was the Fire Release: Fire Wave technique. The flames spread wide as Kiro aimed to cover the area of the wall was spreading towards. If his guess was correct, the girl would be somewhere there with the mist following her. Since Kiro couldn’t see her exact location, even through the mist, he hoped the large spread of the attack would be enough to get her.
Idk how he figured that, he's never seen the effects of this jutsu before xD
In any case, Kiro makes a very logical deduction here, so I can only really applaud his quick thinking.
Village Hidden in the Leaf, Chunin Exams Arena – Day of the Exams
Sagisō
Rank 36 — Heavenly Skillful Star | Yan Roulan
By this point, Sagisō had judged that the distance between her and her opponent was a double-edged sword. The distance allowed her to comfortably react to his moves but it likewise allowed him the same privilege.
She noted that Kiro had estimated her location and then chose to blanket her location in a wide-spread fire-release. Sagisō was okay with this.
Clutching her Fuma underarm, the virago weaved a pair of hand-seals and took a deep breath—Water Style: Syrup Capturing Field!
Rather than the sprinkling of water she'd released earlier, Sagisō choose to meet Kiro head-on by releasing a powerful, continuous stream of sticky water into the flames. The contact between water and fire resulted in an explosive release of thick and sticky steam, which caused the mist to rapidly expand while gaining some of the adhesive properties of her starch capturing field.
But Sagisō wasn't done there, she lined herself up with Kiro below and then...launched herself! She dove straight down at him pushing back his flames with her water release. With the steam being created from the clash between fire and water ahead of her, Sagisō's descent would be largely concealed.
She suspected that Kiro wouldn't even be able to tell that his flames were being pushed back since he would only see the stream disappearing into the now rapidly thickening and expanding steam. With his visibility reduced to near zero, the boy would have seconds—the time during which Sagisō was airborne—to decide his next action.
Very bold, very risky, those are the main takeaways.
It wasn’t too difficult to determine what exactly Roulan had countered his attack with. The moment the steam began to spread rapidly was when Kiro knew she was shooting water at the fire. Reluctantly, Kiro’s sharingan was then immediately activated along with something else. It was good that the steam had covered a good part of the arena or everyone would’ve been able to see his eyes. Even though he didn’t know Roulan herself was also falling towards him, this reaction was close enough to what he was looking for.
Since he needed only one hand to control the fire, Kiro quickly pulled out a scroll with the other. He held it sideways, while allowed the scroll to fall open, facing the fire wave. When it did, that’s when the condition activated the scroll. The specific condition for this scroll was that it would activate when it was heated to a certain temperature while open. Of course, the heat from the fire was quite enough to trigger it. Once the scroll was activated, a strong gust of wind ended up being released into the flames, fueling it while also pushing the water back. Anything else that happened to be pushed inside would likely be pushed back a bit as well.
A bead of sweat trickled down the side of Kiro’s face. Perhaps this was due to the heat or maybe it was because of the chakra expenditure. This was a very risky play on his part. Even with wind enhancement, it was still possible for Roulan to overpower the fire if she wanted to. If Kiro failed to hold off the water, then he would be soaked. From his experience in the Mist, he knew first hand how dangerous that could be against a water release user. However, that result would depend on if Roulan was willing to do what was necessary to douse the flames with water.
What he might lack in other areas, Kiro makes up for in prior preparation.
Also, that clone is p lucky to have avoided all the scalding mist and the glue traps scattered over the arena.
Village Hidden in the Leaf, Chunin Exams Arena – Day of the Exams
Sagisō
Rank 36 — Heavenly Skillful Star | Yan Roulan
The scalds she received from the steam was a worthy sacrifice to obtain the chance she sought; so as the girl's furs were matted with the heated steam, stickied from its adhesive properties, and her skin was beginning to flush from the excessive heat, she prepared her final move. Sagisō had intended to time an explosive burst of chakra, rapidly widening and overpowering Kiro's fire release while leaving him in a precarious position where he wouldn't be able to avoid getting pinned by her sticky water.
However, as Sagisō gauged the strength of this fire release she noted it was getting stronger...much stronger...in fact, too strong. Her expression shifted dramatically as her water released was pushed back with a sudden gale that had caused even her to halt in the air. 'Wind?'
It was a little-known fact that when empowered with wind, fire release could clash against water release without losing. With the addition of wind even if she dramatically increased the strength of her water release, Kiro could still overpower her by increasing the strength of his fire release.
His actions were beyond Sagisō's initial expectations, but she hadn't been caught completely flat-footed. The Fuma shuriken she had created earlier was still in hand, although the water had boiled away to reveal the ice-bombs within. The casing of water had protected them from the immense heat of the fire and allowed her to employ them at this critical moment.
Sagisō strengthened her water released, not to overpower the fire, but to open up a small safe zone around her. With the wind and fire blowing her water backward, Sagisō was quickly soaked by her own water, the outermost layers of which were even beginning to boil. However, it was at this moment that Sagisō detonated her own ice-bombs, flash-freezing the inner-most layer of water and encasing herself in a layer of ice.
Now a Sagisō-popsicle the girl had just enough protection to weather the fire wave. The dual forces of gravity and the blow-back Kiro's own attack caused her to be pulled out of the fire wave, and the ice around her rapidly melted as she dropped out of the fire stream and into the hot steam below. Kiro's addition of wind had punched a hole right through the steam, and that displaced steam had been forced to the sides, thickening the steam directly around it. This was combined with the water from Sagisō's earlier scroll which would've also begun turning to steam with the rapid increase in heat. The end result was zero-visibility steam as thick as it was scalding.
Within the steam, Sagisō landed on the ground below the fire wave which was still aimed at the upper reaches of the arena's walls. The deafening sound of Kiro's flames destroying the arena's wall also served to perfectly mute any sound from her landing. Sagisō had sustained no small number of first-degree burns and even quite a few second-degree ones despite her being coated in water and ice.
Still, this was an opportunity she would not miss. She swiftly went through a series of hand-seals, performing two jutsu utilizing the water around her to fuel the first while disappearing with the second. If and when Kiro realized what had happened it would perhaps already be too late...
Ice bombs are pretty clutch, Sagiso is very resourceful and makes many risky moves at great cost to herself.
Kiro was expecting the girl to continue her attempts at overpowering his fire with water and expected to be overtaken at any moment. However, that moment never came. Perhaps she had actually gotten disintegrated by the fire. Kiro doubted that would happen, but there was no sign of any water coming through his fire. The only way to find out what happened was to stop the fire wave, which he did. With the fire dissipating, Kiro could clearly see the wall in front of him, but no sign of Roulan. At the very least, the view gave him confirmation of something else. He had to act fast.
“This was your plan, right? If you’re gonna finish this, don’t be a coward! Come out and face me yourself!”
The boy tried provoking Roulan as he performed quick hand seals for Lightning Release: Chain Lightning technique, hoping the chains wouldlock onto her if she was nearby. Since her chakra covered most of the mist around him besides the front, Kiro would then lunge forward and junk towards the wall. The remnants of mist in that direction should’ve been just enough to keep the spectators from noticing his eyes, if they weren’t already distracted by something else. Fortunately, the unusual stickiness from the Mist hadn’t been enough to impede his movements, especially since he had also superheated the chakra in his legs to dissolve and liquid that got on them.
solid, practical reaction.
Village Hidden in the Leaf, Chunin Exams Arena – Day of the Exams
Sagisō
Rank 36 — Heavenly Skillful Star | Yan Roulan
Kiro's provocation only served to allow the girl to once more confirm his location from her position underground. His subsequent jumping around then allowed her to confirm his location with even more precision. She had expended no small volume of chakra to utilize her strongest technique—Water Release: Water Fang! This was a B-rank technique, incredibly fast and incredibly powerful.
The water release technique caused water to rotate at incredibly high speeds which she had then utilized to drill into the ground. Following that, she has utilized the hiding in water technique, which allowed her to conceal herself in what should've been an impossibly small volume of water.
The steam above her along with several puddles of scattered water had been saturated with her chakra, providing cover for her as she hid. It was perhaps these scattered puddles that prevented Kiro's chain lightning from locking onto her or, failing that, if it had locked onto her it had probably run itself straight into the ground as it tried to make a B-line to her position.
Her water drills were fairly thin, which made them silent as they burrowed through the ground. Moments after they'd hidden they would re-emerge directly under Kiro, penetrating the soles of his feet before moving onto sieve his body.
Of course, while the drills assaulted her opponent Sagisō continue to bide her time underground.
This is the first and last time Sagiso lands a hit on Kiro :v
Albeit, he's likewise not had many direct hits.
Kiro was already planning to jump up the wall once he got close enough. Yet, when the boy jumped forward, the chain of lightning that had been occupied with the random puddle on the floor suddenly chained into a direction right under him. Unfortunately, Kiro didn’t have time to react as he felt something sharp pierce through his legs. It was like multiple sharp needles going right through them, causing Kiro to curse in pain. They weren’t stopping either, and more seemed to be coming at him from underground. The girl was more cowardly than even Raiku. For all that big talk of hers, the most damage she could do him was when she was hiding safely underground.
‘Pathetic.’
Using shape transformation, Kiro changed the lightning into a blade like shape and then swiped at the water, attempting to break its connection with him. Of course, the lightning was enough to distort the water enough. Since he had been going in a forward motion, he was able to avoid being crippled by the rest of the water. Unfortunately, his legs had to be the sacrifice.
By the time he land on the side of the wall, blood was already starting to stream out from the multiple tiny holes on his legs. The boy grimaced in pain as he spared as little chakra as he could to remain attached to the wall. Kiro then turned around and looked around at the ground, frantically searching for Roulan with his sharingan. From what he could tell, she was only able to attack him from underground due to the sound he made. That’s why it would be in his best interest to remain as quiet as possible. Glancing up to the top of the wall, the boy then nodded as he understood what he had to do.
He pulled out six shuriken with gunpowder and an explosive tag attached to them. Three in each hand as Kiro began to limp up the wall. Then he threw three of them into the air above one-by-one. His intent was seemingly to cause explosions in the air to create enough noise to distract her while avoiding lessening his field of vision. The only way for the girl to actually know where Kiro himself was would then be for her to come out of hiding. His own chakra was already pretty low due to the risks he had taken, so at best he had enough for one, maybe two strong jutsu. Right now was likely his last chance to win.
Since he was already using the sharingan, the smoke wouldn't have mattered and would've cleared the mist and some of the water, more a missed opportunity than a demerit tho
Village Hidden in the Leaf, Chunin Exams Arena – Day of the Exams
Sagisō
Rank 36 — Heavenly Skillful Star | Yan Roulan
The sound of deafening explosions prevented Sagisō from further triangulating Kiro's position and so the girl cautiously extended her senses from a puddle hidden beneath the mist.
As Kiro took to the walls and began detonating bombs, the steam had been allowed to spread unhindered and it was finally near full coverage of the battlefield. Sagisō intended to help that along.
She silently emerged from her puddle and re-applied the hiding in drizzle technique, causing the already expansive mist to expand until it had covered every inch of the arena floor. From there Sagisō positioned herself between a number of puddles that had been imbued with her chakra from the earlier sticky rain.
The virago intended to confirm something but she wasn't going to do it without a little insurance.
"Proctor," She called out. "I was under the impression that killing wasn't permitted in these exams, but this guy has clearly tried to kill me several times. I request he be disqualified for his violation of the rules."
Uh, nothing to say here, no matter how you slice it, it's objectively a bad move for her to have revealed her location.
“This exam is meant to simulate live combat. A shinobi in control of a fight would have the battle go exactly how they please. If you’re allowing your opponent to freely throw around attacks you’re displeased with, then that’s your choice. With that said, killing isn’t necessarily allowed. However, I’ve yet to sense any actual bloodlust from the boy or seen any attack used with the intent to kill. That could be cause for disqualification. Since that doesn’t appear to be the case, your current request is denied.”
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It didn’t seem like Roulan was attacking anytime soon by the time as Kiro managed to make it to the top of the arena wall. The boy winced in pain as he stood up and took in deep breaths as he glanced at his bloody legs. Roulan had gotten a good hit on him, almost a deadly one. That was why Kiro found it funny he was able to hear her complaints from the other side of the arena. Apparently he had been trying to kill her multiple times. It was sad that after hiding away, she was stooping down to an even lower level by asking the proctor to disqualify him.
Fortunately, the proctor didn’t disqualify him. Taking advantage of knowing where her general location was, Kiro used a portion of his remaining chakra to use the fire wave jutsu again. He began to spread more fire, an an attempt to displace the mist and clear the wide angle in the direction the girl might be.
Out of no where, black smoke also suddenly began to cover the area Roulan had been talking from. A quick sniff would be able to smell that this was no ordinary smoke bomb. The dry, dark smoke gave off a fumy scent as it painted the area all around her pitch black. There had been two of these special smoke bombs. The third bomb thrown together with them was just a single gunpowder bomb, which sent the powder flying in all directions after it popped. More importantly, the smoke bombs had chakra infused into them, so when it spread, it coated the area in Kiro’s chakra, allowing him to see chakra that was not his own with his eyes. Of course, the finishing touches would come soon after.
There were three kunai thrown in as well, hidden by the spreading smoke as they silently flew into the dark smoke. Only a second later would the tags attached to them light everything up. Even if Roulan managed to escape in time, the explosion should still cause some serious damage. Perhaps even enough to knock her out for a few seconds. If she was so concerned about being touched, then Kiro could be generous for her. Hopefully, for the first and last time this match. The explosion itself also served as a good cover, as her own vision would be quite limited. More importantly, the water nearby should’ve been evaporated.
A strong offense that served multiple purposes, what more can I say?
Village Hidden in the Leaf, Chunin Exams Arena – Day of the Exams
Sagisō
Rank 36 — Heavenly Skillful Star | Yan Roulan
The sudden appearance of smoke and its tell-tale smell immediately alerted Sagisō to Kiro's plan. With fire coming from above and the kinder he'd somehow prepared below, it was evident he planned to blow her and the arena to pieces. Without hesitation, she activated the insurance she had prepared for such a situation as this—Water Release: Spider Lily.
Tendrils of water, much thicker than the ones she'd created at the beginning of the match emerged from the puddles around her, swirling together into a defensive curtain. Although Sagisō had been expecting an attack such as this one, what she hadn't expected was for the igniter to come from somewhere else and the sudden detonation shattered her water curtain and flung her across the arena. She hit the wall with a crack that would've been sickening, had it not been drowned out by the sound of explosions.
It was her fortune that she'd made the mist hanging around her more viscous with the vaporization of her starch capturing field; the unnatural adhesive and cohesive properties of the mist had allowed the ambient particles of water to capture the spreading powders and then clump them together. This had concentrated the powder further away from her than Kiro might've liked as the powder's ability to spread was severely undercut.
Even with the explosion further away from her and the shockwave blunted by her Spider Lily, she was sure a rib or two had been broken. She could only watch helplessly as Kiro's fire wave bathed the arena in heat, wiping away much of the mist she'd created.
The girl grunted and pushed herself to her feet. What she'd gathered from her short conversation with the proctor was that as long as she didn't release her killing intent, it would be fine to attack with moves that could easily kill.
Striking a few hand-seals, Sagisō created a water-clone from one of the few puddles remaining on the very edges of the arena. The beauty of the water-clone technique was its ability to reproduce a clone with all the physical capabilities of the user and as Suigisō lacked the accumulated damage that Sagisō had sustained, she was in peak form. This was something she proved with action.
Suigisō shot out of the mist at top speed and lead with a double Arabian. She rounded off, heading for the center of the arena, and vaulted on her hands. She left a single paper bomb plastered to the ground as she sprang high into the air spinning into two somersaults as she neared the halfway mark on the wall.
On the first somersault, she dispensed three bomb-tagged kunai in a fan, which would nail themselves into the wall below Kiro. The tags were all fake, but that fact was unknown to her opponent. Had they been real, their explosions would've blown him off the wall and into the air, where he would be helpless to defend himself from a follow-up attack. The limited space on the wall limited the number of directions he could move in without being air-borne.
On the second somersault, she dispensed three more kunai. Only two were bomb-tagged, these tags real, and fanned out near the mid-point of the wall below Kiro. The last kunai had been thrown towards another section of the eastern wall, which she was closest to, and the wire attached to it would allow Suigisō to swiftly pull herself towards that wall.
Simultaneously with Suigisō's assault, still within the mist, Sagisō had condensed the remaining mist into four Fuma shuriken, causing it to fully vanish. All of the Fuma had been condensed around regular shuriken, but they were not the only regular shuriken in her hand. Sagisō dished out her shuriken in flourished pairs.
The first flourish sent two Fuma shuriken that had been loosely condensed using less chakra than was necessary. Sagisō threw them in opposite arcs towards Kiro on the wall, covering his right and left exits. Without the necessary chakra needed to hold the water together in its compact form, the water-shuriken began to disintegrate into a misty trail.
Their curved paths would delay them, ensuring they arrived shortly after Suigisō's first volley of fake bombs. If Kiro dodged left or right, he would dodge into the range of these Fuma shurikens, or rather, since the Fuma would've fully disintegrated at that point, he would dodge into the range of any approaching attack, hidden within the misty trail.
And there would be attacks hidden in the misty trail, but their trajectories were instead aimed to cover the right and left walls. Two bomb-tagged shurikens were headed for the sections of the wall, both right and left, he'd need to dodge towards in order to evade the explosions at his current position. These were the second flourished pair.
Sagisō kept the last two Fuma in hand as she began to move up the wall right behind her. She was closing distance in preparation for Kiro's reaction—seeking to pin him after he reacted, or if needed, detonate her various paper-bombs, which had been set to remote detonation.
Pretty much got lucky there that something planted earlier happened to be crucial at this moment.
‘So that’s how it is. Not that I can complain.’
If Sagisō or Suigisō looked close enough, they could see Kiro’s sharingan quickly analyzing the trajectory of all the thrown kunai from the water clone. It was pretty clear that remaining in his current position would be the unwise decision. Forcing him into the air must’ve been the aim of the Hasa Kunoichi. In that case, he’d give the girl what she wanted and perhaps even something more. Since his legs were currently not in the best shape, Kiro was forced to rely on his hands.
Before the first set of kunai with explosive tags dug themselves into the wall directly beneath him, Kiro let himself fall forward. As the boy did so, he turned his body enough to where he could push off a just a bit with his hands into a sort of half mid-air front flip. It granted him some extra distance from the wall. As he was falling towards the area where the next batch of kunai had now dug themselves of the wall, Kiro pulled out a smoke bomb and some kunai before immediately crushing the bomb with his hand just before passing over the explosives.
Of course, since they were set to remote activation, once they inevitably exploded, there were at least three kunai that burst out of the smoke in the direction of Suigisō. Their speed had been intensified all thanks to the force from the explosion. Meanwhile, there was another kunai that had been sent flying upwards, nearly over the arena walls. As the lone kunai drew near the center of the arena, it would then be shriuded in a white puff of smoke. Out of the smoke came the boy, his body turning midair while summoning six shuriken laced explosives tags and gunpowder, three in each hand.
Attempting to predict her movements to avoid the kunai, Kiro would then throw three of the Shuriken downwards at wherever Suigisō was. Fortunately, there was still some rising steam on the outskirts of the arena above the walls, which should’ve been enough to conceal his sharingan from the eyes of the spectators. The boy continued turning his body until he was prepared to throw the remaining three shuriken at Sagisō, who was running up the side of a wall. It was all thanks to his sharingan that allowed him to determine the real one and continued to watch her with it.
Village Hidden in the Leaf, Chunin Exams Arena – Day of the Exams
Sagisō
Rank 36 — Heavenly Skillful Star | Yan Roulan
Sagisō decisively detonated the twin paper bombs as Kiro entered their range, the added smoke and loss of vision causing her to narrow her eyes warily. Ninja tools shot erratically from the smoke and littered the battlefield, the explosion shooting them in every which direction. None managed to near Sagisō or her clone, who had both been below the explosion but the numerous kunai did give the duo other things to focus on as Kiro hid amidst them. He didn't seem keen on stealth, however, dropping his transformation in mid-air.
Once he was in the air, Sagisō knew his ability to reposition was limited. She launched herself off the wall, spinning through the air. She noted as Suigisō intercepted Kiro's shuriken with one of her own, a chain reaction of explosions quickly eliminating all six shurikens. Using the explosions as a smokescreen Sagisō sailed both her Fuma towards Kiro's airborne location, they would detonate after a few seconds, where they would've been relatively close to the boy.
Sagisō also detonated the paper-bomb Suigisō had planted on the ground, creating a cloud of detritus that concealed her as she fell into it. Moments later, tendrils of water would shoot up from Sagisō's location, penetrating the debris clouds and seeking out the airborne Kiro. This was Sagisō's Spider Lily, generated from the water that had seeped underground through the holes she'd drilled with her Water Fang. This subterranean water had been protected from Kiro's best efforts at evaporating it.
And now she struck, capitalizing on this moment as Suigisō watched vigilantly, shuriken and bombs in hand, and Kiro remained limited by his airborne position.
idk what to say other than she clearly knew exactly what she doing. She was either being very resourceful or very deliberate.
Although Kiro managed to successfully avoid the potential explosions from kunai thrown earlier, being stranded midair still meant he had played right into her hands. He was unable to avoid the two fūma water shuriken Sagisō has sent his way. The concussive force from their simultaneous explosions were enough to knock the air out of him for a brief second, causing him to drop remaining shuriken he had in his hands. This was why he had to act before she could complete whatever her intended strategy was.
Fortunately, there was still another trump card Kiro had in play. You see, before the match had begun, Kiro prepared something just in case. It was high risk, high reward. By creating a shadow clone to charge up a certain technique of his, one that would normally take too much time if he did it himself during the middle of battle, Kiro had sacrificed a good portion of chakra before the match even started. It could’ve been costly, especially if Sagisō just happened to sweep away the kunai it was transformed into. Kiro had taken another risk by leaving it out on the battlefield. It had been the same seemingly basic kunai he threw on the floor earlier. It was supposed to take Sagisō by surprise and the opportunity did arise during the brief clash with his fire wave. The large amounts of steam would cover the clone while it waited on the walls, in one of the remaining clear areas in the arena, for its moment to strike.
For the clone to have thrown the previous smoke bombs accurately in the first place, it had to be near Sagisō. Which Kiro was after it was attempting to sneak behind her beforehand. Once she had cleared all the mist in the nearby vicinity, the clone had to refrain from coming any closer until the time came to strike. Now with both Sagisō and Suigisō focused on Kiro, the clone, which could be dubbed Kira, was able to move across the wall while still concealed by the remaining mist somewhat. Of course, the blue electricity that suddenly began to coat Kira didn’t help his cover much. What did help would be the sound of the explosions that would occur from the first three shuriken that he threw towards to Suigisō. Once they exploded, the sound should be enough to cover the noise of the electricity around clone, which would allow to get the jump on Sagisō before she could complete her finishing move.
After moving towards the bottom of the wall, Kira would dash towards Sagisō at blistering speeds. Even though Sagisō was concealed by the debris she had jumped into, his eyes allowed him to see her chakra inside as well as the chakra that began to rise up from beneath. Thanks to the sound of the latest explosions and the water erupting from the ground, that should’ve been enough noise to cover his advance. The clone aimed to quickly knock Sagisō out with a strike to the back of her neck before her attack connected with Kiro. Considering her thick hair was covering the entire back of her neck, there was still a chance the simple attack wouldn’t be enough. The clone would then try to hold onto her just in case it needed to proceed with a follow up attack.
I think the for the most part, Sagisō vs Kiro speaks for itself; they're both highly competent and tactical fighters.
Kiro spends much of the fight trying to deduce Sagiso's location and actions through a combination of logic and a really clutch guess or two. if nothing else it shows he's keen, observant, and more than a bit lucky. He has an amazing offensive presence and capacity for ninjutsu that I don't think has been matched by any other OC, he's ruthless in his approach and tends to cover every base he can—though this often results in him overextending and he doesn't appear to plan more than his next attack. He also doesn't seem to show much resourcefulness with regards to making use of the environment, prior attacks, or things like that—but what he might lack there he more than makes up for with prior preparation, which ultimately gave him the edge and the win.
Sagiso is...a wild fighter, as strategic as she is reckless, and in this battle, she certainly controlled the pacing. Kiro spent most of this fight either looking for her or guesstimating her location—her raw resourcefulness is perhaps her strongest showing but even it doesn't stop her from getting saved by coincidence when her reckless actions put her in precarious positions. Props to Kiro for being able to capitalize on these moments.
In spite of all that, it's hard to say she has a
strong offensive presence...in the sense that she doesn't overwhelm her opponent with power but spends most of the fight positioning herself for high-risk, high-reward gambles, and most of these gambles fail due to Kiro's prior preparation or him just luckily not getting hit. All that said, she may not be the person you want leading teams in the field under any normal circumstances lol
Needless to say, this is not the most objective analysis and I do have my biases. Should compare it against Retro's analysis of the same situations.
