Ask to Join Naruto: One's Nindo

[=Nightshade=]

“Careful with the more severely injured,” Karui advised calmly, finally addressing the escort squad. “Wouldn’t want anyone bleeding out before I can get to them. I will acquire the more gravely wounded; they will need first aid before being moved.” With that, she took to the sky for a better vantage point, scanning with her antennae to locate the quickest fading chakra, the most labored breathing, and the strongest coppery smell-taste of blood. Those would be the worst injuries that would have to be treated first.

Karui looped around towards a young girl, somehow still alive, with half her body trapped under the wreckage of a carriage. The blood seeping from between the planks was far less than it should have been, a clear indicator that the flames had cauterized the wounds — and then some — before they had faded out. The medical nin drew her khopesh and sliced the smoking wood into manageable chunks, and began throwing them aside. The maybe-ten-year-old girl’s skin had been burned red and shiny, in some places caked with blackened blood, and Karui winced, beginning to close some of the weeping wounds and blisters. Those would beckon infection to come, which was the last thing any of the injured needed. She fumbled with a syringe of painkiller; she’d done all she could for the moment if she wanted to have enough chakra to stop as many as possible from dying.

Karui lifted the girl’s trembling body and deposited her in a nearby clearing created by the massive clash of wind jutsu. It would have been better if the area was sterile, but it was the best they had. A man with a leg missing was crawling desperately from another wreckage, and Karui alighted next to him. “I’m a healer,” she assured him, “Hold still.” He probably couldn’t hear her through a delirium of pain, but it calmed her down to talk to her patients. “I’m going to stop the leg’s bleeding now. Try not to move.” He was placed next to the little girl. Karui eyed the puppet nin suspiciously, part of her wondering if she could find his leg and reattach it before the puppet girl turned him into a cyborg.

The next patients that couldn’t wait for transport before getting first aid included a man with half his face burned almost to the bone, raving about hellhounds, a little boy with severe burns she healed enough to avoid death or permanent damage and commissioned his mother to take him to the clearing, and an old woman with deep lacerations up and down her arms and legs. There better be some seriously good shit in that caravan, Karui thought, intense irritability borne by exhaustion as she knelt beside another patient in the clearing. Those jewels I picked up were cool and all, but nowhere near enough for taxing my chakra this much. I’m gonna need a serious nap after all this. But a lurking, deeper thought tickled at the edges of her mind: I can’t let anyone die again. Not like her. Not again.

 

[Hecotoro]

Asahi rolled her eyes, every time she heard Shura talk, she felt like punching him. Not Shiho though, too bad they were related. "Come on Wind Dragon guy, help me out. We can try and gather their things, specially their food and I'm sure my sister could use any medical supplies."

The best ninja in the world, Asahi, began going around picking up any food, ingredients, tools and other useful things she could find and carrying them back to the last wagons, which some were basically in touch. At first the men in charge of them seemed afraid, but after they saw what she was brining in, they began sorting them out. Of course, she kept the red apples and carrots to herself, thinking Milk would want to eat more later.

"I don't think of an animal, I follow the way of Buda's Palm. It's a pamphlet I bought one day which contains the secrets of how to use Buda's Palm. Of course I'm still learning, but when I countered your attack, I just pictured myself punching the dragon." Asahi explained to Kaito while walking over to Karui's area. "I found some bandages and those weird medical liquids things you use." She dropped a box with medical supplies near one of the injured. "Get better soon!"

Kas growled as she heard Shura talking about her, but she didn't stop. Clic, clic, clic. She set her eyes on the Hyuga in a meanecing way. "We have the right to be prepared in case you try anything funny."

 

[Retro Master]

5 Days After The Exams​

Taking per person was her interpretation of his request and so the Prince didn’t have much more to add to that at the moment. It irked him that the girls thought he owed them for the lives they had played a part in hurting. Of course, his own escorts were the ones who had essentially sacrificed them in order to protect him. So at the very least, he could trust them with his life. The girls, not so much. Either way, he just wanted his people healed first.

“Very well, young lady. Just don’t try anything funny, like that genjitsu or whatever he said.” The Prince spoke to the leader of the bandits, referring to the genjutsu Shura had mentioned. “And I am still waiting for my drink.”

 

[kyuukestu]

Land of Hot Water | (Sept 30 , 5 Days after the Exams)

Titled Name: Yan Xia Roulan

True Name: Sagisō Ajisai​

Rank 36 — Heavenly Skillful Star | Yan Qing​

“No.”

A simple answer meant to address both Shura and the Prince. The genjutsu would continue. The Skillful Star evidently had no intention of easing their concerns by lowering her guard.

For her part, Sagisō kept a vigilant watch over the movements of the other escorts, moving over to Karui’s side so she could provide some assistance with her liquid bandages.

Only the most grievously wounded and in danger of bleeding out would receive her attention and she ensured to warn Karui.

“The bow is discarded once the hunt is finished.”

That was to say, 'things were discarded once they no longer had usage'; Sagisō fully expected the escorts to turn on them once the people were healed and deliberately reminded Karui not to fully heal them. Ultimately, they would both need to preserve some chakra to deal with anything else that would crop up.

 

[DemonicHoneyBun]

Kaito followed close behind Asahi and began picking up food and tools, while following behind her he chuckled as she called him wind dragon guy.

"Actually my name is Kaito Watanabe."

Once Asahi talked about the buda's palm he immediately got curious about it, he wondered how much stronger the girl would become if she had mastered the buda palm, he couldn't help but get a little giddy about the idea of it. Once he snapped out of his daze he walked toward Karui and dropped what he gathered next to her.

"Um, do you know any good fishing area's near here? I could try to make these people some food."

 

[=Nightshade=]

Karui spared Saigso a peevish glance that said, in essence, “Duh” before tying off a bandage with unnecessary force. “Sorry,” she apologized immediately to the patient, then stood and began to paw through the supplies that Asahi had dropped off. Her fingers touched something wet and sickly-sweet smelling at the bottom, and she groaned internally. Some idiot had thought it a grand idea that some of the medicines should be stored in glass bottles inside the portable container. Because that made so much sense. Karui began drawing out the intact bottles — thankfully, most of them were — and shook them a few times to try and flick off the less than appealing concoction of rubbing alcohol and cough syrup that had mixed in the bottom of the medical bag. Luckily the bandages and empty syringes were in a plastic bag and had not been contaminated — a nice break, since Karui had used most of her own high-strength painkillers. The people with less severe injuries would have to live without the industrial grade stuff.

Cough medicine, fever medicine, an empty hot water compress… more bandages, that’s useful. Karui took a mental inventory of everything she found in the bags, setting them aside in piles according to usefulness. And— oh! The girl’s hands found a small bottle filled with clear liquid, its lid clearly meant for a syringe. Jackpot. A fast-acting general anesthetic. It wasn’t a lot, but it would be enough to put the people in the greatest pain under for a couple hours. Okay, so we’ve got plenty of bandages, a fair number of syringes, general pain meds, antidotes for common poison, and a ton of cold medication. Then we’ve got the extra useful stuff, like sterile needles, special stitches, and the general anesthetic. And it all has to be spread around… looks like about thirty right now, but there could be more coming. Or I’m exhausted and hallucinating that I have less or more work to do than I do in actuality. She shook her head. Focus, Karui. Get the kids stable so them and their parents will shut up and you can focus on the even more critically injured.

At Kaito’s mention of food as he dropped his own scavenged supplies, Karui’s stomach gave a petulant growl. She flushed slightly but kept her tone professional. “It smells like freshwater about couple hundred meters that way.” She pointed, antennae giving a twitch. “Probably a lake or small river. I don’t know how much fish will be there, but it seems potentially promising.” She gathered rolls of bandages into her arms and began going around again, wrapping shallower cuts and wounds that would hurt but not kill. Then she made her way over to the younger children, and began to heal more holistically, in an attempt to stop the parents’ sobbing and the kids’ whining. The last thing she needed was more distractions.

 

[Retro Master]

“I’d prefer if you didn’t do that, but good luck.”

Kiro replied to her stated intentions with slight amusement in his voice. He’d rather not have any regrets, but his opponent planned to make that tough. As she should. Like he expected, Yua took full advantage of his offer and struck first. After flicking some hand seals, she used the Tameru Art: Poison Stream Jutsu. When Kiro heard her name the technique, it all but confirmed his prior theory about her heritage.

“So you really are from the Tameru clan, huh.”

As Kiro stated this confirmation aloud, he had immediately hopped back and formed hand-seals with great speed to quickly counter with a Fire Style: Fire Wave Jutsu. The technique allowed him to continuously spew a wave of fire wider than the spread of her Poison Stream Jutsu. This should allow the fire that flowed out of his mouth to just completely consume the poison and potentially even Yua. He did recall that during her fight with Tsuki, she did try to hide within her poison cloud. Kiro wouldn’t put it past Yua to try the same here, which is why he opted to just cover it all in flames. At the very least, the wave of fire was certainly enough to push the poison back. Whether or not Yua could see the fire coming her way and react to it in time if she was inside the poison cloud was another question.

Of course, Kiro was also prepared if she had somehow managed to escape the fire and counterattack. Not that he planned to keep the fire going for long anyways. The fire itself came out his mouth like a thin line at first. This allowed Kiro some space from the fire when it greatly expanded to form the wave itself. His free left hand, that wasn’t necessary to cast the jutsu, was up by the wrist of his right hand, ready to pull ninja tools out of the storage seal there if he needed to.

 

[jade421]

It seemed her foe had her well scouted as she felt a sudden heat clash against the poison cloud she produced as a red and orange color seemed to clash against the purple mist she produced. A Fire Release technique huh? Seemed this guy carried a diverse arsenal with him and worse he seemed to have caught onto her strategies. So she'd have to adapt or get burned, literally!
Alright, let's try this!

Yua stopped her advance with this thought as she moved back with the poison that had been pushed back, but bot before a pair of weapons seemed to fling from her pouch. In this case a pair of kunai that seemed to be launched through the mist and through the flames towards her opponent. Course given she traced the metal with her palms they were coated in her clan's poison, and if she managed to get a cut in on the shinobi she'd be able to begin the infection. Did she expect this to happen? Not really, which is why she added a pair of poisoned shuriken to add another element to it, but more importantly had slipped an explosive tag on one of the kunai. One that the very flames Kiro had shot ignited for her as now it sailed and was set to present an explosive surprise to the Mist ninja.

Yua course was not done here, and before the poison had been burned or blasted away for good she took advantage of her concealed sight as she prepared some more hand signs, as the Earth below her feet seemed to shift as a conversion to mud had began...after all, Yua may have been a Tameru but that had not meant she was only restricted to her own clan's techniques.

 

[Retro Master]

Due to there not appearing to be any pushback from Yua, the fire just continued towards her. This meant the fire wave would’ve just washed over Yua if she remained in its path. That seemed to be the case as she only moved backwards with the poison that had been pushed back. What Yua might have also forgotten was that throwing an explosive tag into scorching hot fire would just cause it to instantly explode. That’s exactly what happened when the tagged kunai entered the fiery wave. It blew up along with the rest of her counterattack, the force of the sending the other kunai and shuriken flying off course. The explosion itself only adding fuel to the fire.

Not that Kiro could see any of that, of course. It was the resounding boom of the explosion inside the flames followed by a kunai sailing out of the fire a bit away from Kiro which was enough to tip him off that something was up. Instinctively, he hopped back once again and performed some hand seals, just in case Yua wasn’t consumed by the fire. This caused the fire wave to begin dying down just before it could reach the walls behind where Yua should’ve been. As the fire wave was extinguished, it would soon become apparent that there was another Kiro standing beside the original…

 

[DemonicHoneyBun]

Kaito chuckled as Karui's stomach growled and began to take off his backpack, he took his fishing rod off and began to tighten the fishing line.

"If anyone wants to help me gather some fish? If you do just follow me and make sure you don't fall into the water while fishing."

He picked his backpack back up and began to run off in the direction Karui pointed towards with a smile on his face.

 

[kyuukestu]

Land of Hot Water | (Sept 30 , 5 Days after the Exams)

Titled Name: Yan Xia Roulan

True Name: Sagisō Ajisai​

Rank 36 — Heavenly Skillful Star | Yan Qing​

The Skillful Star’s expression twisted slightly. It was one thing for the escort group to have handed off care of the patients to her sisters; it was another for them to flippantly go fishing whilst doing so.

“HOLD IT!”

Her booming voice commanded attention. A scowl darkened her features and she glared at Kaito.

“You’re not going anywhere until this is all cleaned up and all the patients are stable.”

She threw a pointed look towards Asahi to preemptively squish any ideas the girl might’ve had of running off with Kaito. That they’d even entertained the thought irked the girl and her eyes swiftly latched onto the members of the escort squad, fury growing as they idled about.

Remembering the information she’d gathered about their nature transformations, Sagisō formulated a plan of action and dished out orders.

“You, you, and you two,” She singled out the two Hyūga, and the pair of Asahi and Kaito. “Sweep the wreckage for any survivors, extricate them if they’re trapped, and bring them back here.”

Next, she turned on Lin. “You, head to the front of the caravan and search for any supplies; food and medicine are the most important right now, things like cloth that we can substitute for bandages are good too.”

“You,” She pointed at Ayaka. “Water Release, right? Go with puppet girl and help her find supplies you should be able to deal with any remaining flames; you also need to douse the area with water. Several of my bombs went off up there, so you need to douse the surrounding woods to prevent a spark.”

Lastly, she turned to Raiku.

“You’re with me, we’re going to set up a preliminary zone to handle patients before they can receive proper medical care. The primary focus will be to stop their bleeding; you can use Sticky Water, right? If you thicken it then you can create a liquid bandage, thick enough and it’ll retain fluids—like blood; if you can’t do that then use a kunai and your fire release to cauterize the ones in danger of bleeding out.”

“Well...? Get moving!”

 

[Grand Master Koop]

"If anyone here is trying anything funny its your group." Replied Shura. Kas tried to make it sound like her Genjutsu was meant to be a failsafe in case anyone tried anything, but by casting that while no one was acting out of line, they end up being the ones acting suspicious. It was clear that arguing with these ruffians was going to be a waste of time, they marched at their own pace and anything attempting to disrupt their rhythm will simply be met with apathy.

Not long after Shura began excavating the injured from their place under the wreckage of what was once a massive caravan, Sagiso began barking out orders like she was the head of the operation. The young man paused for a second, looking back at her with disinterest. "I was already on it." He responded, lacking any engagement in his voice.

 

[Godjacob]

The shots struck the wall and some shots managed to chip away at it but most bubbles burst against it as Azumi landed and looked on with a focused neutrality. Her reaction based not so much that her shots had been blocked but she had lost sight of her opponent, which against one who used the Earth had never been a good sign. So, she pulled out her umbrella…

During this the clone tried to land a key thrust, but Tomiko seemed to account for the clone’s efforts to encircle her as she jumped over and attempted to land a shot to its exposed back! However, the clone shifted the umbrella behind her as she used it as a guard to her punch, looking to sponge the impact of the blow.

At this point the clone revealed the item in its pouch, an explosive tag, that had been lit as it seemed to smile. The fire burned the paper as the clone dropped its umbrella and aimed to grasp Tomiko’s wrist to hold close, and then…

BOOM!!!​

 

[jade421]

Yua's projectiles had been a bit of a mixed bag, leading on the negative side as it seemed her paper bomb had burst on impact with the flames. In spite of the fire that had to use energy to burn the poison mist she fired and the delayed trigger which showed just the strength of the flames. Her weapons were knocked aside, but the blast had managed to knock away the flames for a moment, which allowed Yua the time she needed as she mud which she had formed around her and coated with the poison in her palm had began to take shape around her.
"Earth Release: Mud Sphere!"

The mud seemed to form what seemed to be this elevated sphere around the Tameru kunoichi before it shifted to the side as Yua seemed to be able to move deceptively fast inside this thing. A pair of holes which one assumed were eyeholes caused this rolling along the ground as the aim to be to circle the flames Kiro had shot forward as it rolled picking up speed as the intent seemed to be to try and drive this make-shift battering ram right into the Mist Ninja; and as a bonus, it had been coated with the poison in Yua's palms upon creation which added a certain toxic touch to things.

 

[ThAtGuY101]

~Lin Arasaka...~

Lin looked around bewildered as the bandit was giving orders. She herself was eventually instructed to gather supplies.

"But I already have supplies" Lin said. Dokyo tightened its grip around Lin before she let go of control. She then used her summoning scroll to get another puppet. This one was Raimei. A strange birdlike puppet with four faces.

"My medical puppet already has tools I can use to help people with. I'm not a complete heartless sociopath. I at least try to help people" Lin said gesturing to her puppet. The bird puppet's head spun around. Four faces looking at everyone nearby.

 

[Hecotoro]

Asahi yawned loudly, wondering how much this pointless arc in her life would continue. She did as her sister said, no questions asked. The faster she did it the sooner she could spend time with Milk, her new horse. She went for another supply run, moving things out of the way, keeping some food in her pockets and asking some of the men still walking around to help her gather some. She eventually got a full crate, and with the help of the biggest man around, that was healthy, they delivered it back to the are where Karui was. Satisfied in her work, the Hasa jinchuriki went back to Milk.

"I saved you this big carrot." She said as she offered it to the mare. "I can't wait till you see my house, you can sleep in my room, next to Kas."

 

[Godjacob]

Tomiko’s eyes widened as her punch was blocked by the umbrella, though that was not the reason for her concern as the clone revealed a paper bomb and seemed to try to grab her to blow them up together. This girl was ruthless! Tomiko worked to kick the clone back and try to gain distance as she frantically formed hand signs.

Sorry about this Mori!​

The explosion sounded, though from Azumi’s view all she had seen was the rumble of the blast chip a bit more on the Earth Wall Tomiko had created as silence followed. Azumi had no way to know how much of the blast hit Tomiko, if it did at all but she was not about to go stroll over to that area just yet, she listened and watched for any signs of activity in the event of some trap.

However, then she felt a rumble. Distant at first but soon she heard it grow as it seemed to grow closer and was…beneath her?

Her eyes shot up as she jumped back on reflex just as the ground broke below her and Tomiko appeared, having burrowed a tunnel to avoid the blast and now tried to land a gauntlet strike to her jaw! Azumi had managed to just avoid this fate, but was less successful as Tomiko kicked her gut and knocked Azumi back who landed on her feet as she grasped it for a moment from the pain and quickly noted something.

Her belt was gone.​

“Looking for this~” Tomiko said with a cheeky grin as her other hand had grabbed the belt of canteens while the punch took Azumi’s focus. With a bit of flair, she casually chuckled the canteen belt to the crowd to provide a souvenir and more importantly take it out of play. Azumi cast a frown at her foe who only smirked as she assumed a fighting stance and seemed pleased with herself.

“So, feel like taking me seriously yet, princess of the rain~?”​

 

[Retro Master]

“D-disgusting!”

“M-monster!”

Both Kiro and his clone had almost the same, disgusted reaction when they first noticed the sphere of mud rolling right towards them. It was a good thing Kiro had released the fire wave jutsu earlier, otherwise he wouldn’t have been able to react to the mud sphere just yet. He didn’t expect the girl to have something so dirty up her sleeves. It made him sick. Kiro despised being unclean, which made mud his ultimate enemy. The last thing Kiro wanted was to be contaminated by the mucky substance and scarred for life. That’s why his right hand had immediately reached into his weapon pouch to pull out two smoke bombs.

Exchanging a brief glance with his duplicate, Kiro then crushed the bombs in his hand, which began to shroud a large portion of the area around him in smoke. Meanwhile, the other Kiro that seemed to have been abandoned muttered a curse under his breath. The ball was in his hands now and so, he summoned three kunai with explosive tags attached to them and two without as leapt out of the smoke, revealing himself. Fortunately, even with the rapid pace the sphere was rolling at, there was quite the bit of distance between them due to both of their earlier movements. This meant Kiro still had a few seconds to counter and run away before Yua was on top of him.

“Let’s see how strong your defense is.”

With that said, ‘Kiro’ threw the five kunai in the path of the mud sphere as he leapt back, inching closer to the wall behind. The kunai themselves were aimed to hit the front of the sphere, assuming Yua came his way. There were a few things Kiro wanted to test out. One was how durable the sphere was. Could paper bombs destroy the outer layer? Would the mud just reform? He also knew earth release was usually negatively affected by lightning release in general. Considering the mud sphere was an earth release technique, how would lightning interact with it? Of course, that in itself depended how he utilized lightning against it. That was why the two kunai without explosive tags were instead coated in lightning chakra, meant to enhance their piercing capabilities.

For added measure, the two lightning kunai were thrown a bit ahead of the ones with the explosive kunai to ensure they struck first. He considered activating the paper bombs prematurely, which would increase its celerity due to the force from the explosion behind. However, seeing how much damage the explosions could do to the mud sphere would be more important in the long term. Of course, he was also ready to follow this attack up and summoned a fūma shuriken.

While that was happening, assuming Yua focused on the Kiro she could see, the other one would be lurking around somewhere, it’s location known only to the crowd and himself thanks to the smoke that should’ve been able to block Yua’s vision of him. With Yua being in the rolling mud sphere, her other senses probably wouldn’t help as much either. This meant if Yua opted to roll into the smoke instead, she’d be doing so blind, unlike Kiro, who had his own way of seeing things through the smoke. That would also make her completely vulnerable to the attacks from the other Kiro and possibly any traps set up in the smoke. Besides that, there was also a chance her opponent had just used the smoke bomb as the classic ninja tool to escape and prepare his counter. Considering there was also a large ninja tool in his hand, perhaps he did indeed have a surprise prepared for her.

 

[DemonicHoneyBun]

Kaito dropped his fishing rod and gave Roulan an annoyed look before searching for food or people who might be under one of the fallen caravan. All that he could find was a basket full of salmon that looked and smelled pretty fresh, some of it had fallen out sure, but it was better then nothing. Kaito counted the Salmon and the total came to about sixteen. Kaito moved some of the things that were in his way and found a apple.

"A little snack before dinner never hurt anyone. Besides she wouldn't mind me eating a single apple if we got all of this Salmon to eat."

Kaito picked up the basket and put the apple in his mouth and walk over towards Karui, he set down the basket and took the apple out his mouth before speaking.

"Guess I don't have to find that lake or river now, even though fishing is the best part of getting to eat the fish but who the hell cares."

 

[jade421]

Inside the sphere of mud Yua twitched as she had managed to hear the comments Kiro and she presumed a clone made in response to her technique. Perhaps it had not been as flashy as fire but that had not given this Mist ninja right to judge her!? None the less she had to focus on something else for now as Kiro seemed committed to testing how durable this sphere of hers but before that her limited vision was concealed as a pair of smoke bombs had been released which obscured where Kiro had been.
Isn't gonna be that easy!

Yua had that thought to herself as she quickly noted the flying kunai that had been shot ahead, which her helpful eye window she maintained at level managed to pick up. And rather than take it head on, the kunoichi did something she doubted the Mist ninja expected. She pivoted inside her sphere and caused the bottom to bounce against the ground as she leapt up with it in the air and sailed the sphere over the kunai! Yua counted on avoiding the explosion on the kunai as they sailed below her, perhaps she even considered that the coming explosion when it triggered would help push her a little higher but at the moment her focus had been on evasion but that had been far from the only intent with the move.
Alright, how about this!

Suddenly Yua ejected herself while the sphere descended down, exiting out of the back with staff in hand as she flipped back and landed on her feet while her poison-coated mud sphere rolled down towards Kiro amid the smoke. However, Yua had prepared a little surprise of her own as inside the sphere where she had once been was a pair of her own explosive tags that had one job; to cause her mud sphere to explode! The aim was, if the mud sphere landed on Kiro himself not only had he now faced a crushing physical blow, not only would the poison she coated withint he mud for this item hit and expose him to it, but it'd explode as well destined to do extra damage. Course, if the sphere missed or Kiro dodged it, the explosion would blast away the smoke he had produced to clear the field, and it would break the sphere into several mud projectiles; chunks blasted in all directions by the internal explosion that would spread around the field which hopefully either would slam into Kiro and his clone, or at the bare minimum cover the field with poisoned chunks of mud which should make traversing it a bit tricker for the Mist ninja. Yua herself upon landing would backflip as she aimed to land in a safe enough spot and scout the area of the resulting impact as she wanted to be prepared for a follow up based on whatever Kiro would do in response; if he had a response of course.

 

[Godjacob]

Azumi needless to say was less than amused by the Genin’s bluster, especially when a clever ploy turned an explosive surprise into her advantage. However, Azumi broke into a rare smile as she twirled her umbrella in the air as it opened up and its loaded senbon were prepped and ready.

“Don’t flatter yourself, I have not yet begun to fight.” Auzmi mused, and the senbon shot out in a 360 arc around her as dozens of senbon raced for Tomiko. In case Tomiko attempted to dive back to that hole of hers, she tossed a pair of kunai from her pouch in the aim to at the very least keep her focus off it for a split second to allow the senbon to close in on her.

During this, Azumi pulled a new belt of canteens from a scroll and strapped it around her waist.

-----​

Tomiko cursed, her natural impulse to move to her hole to avoid the storm was blocked with a pair of kunai she had been forced to deflect with her gauntlets. Tomiko was forced back and used her gauntlets to try and parry the senbon; focusing on protecting vital spots along her neck, head and chest as her gauntlets managed to deflect a number of senbon that scattered on the field.

Several more though kept flying and found targets, striking parts of Tomiko’s arms, thighs and her sides as the kunoichi winced at each. Still so long as vital vein or organ was avoided these were little more than paper cuts in the grand scheme of things, and as Tomiko back into her broken pillar she took inspiration.

Tomiko grabbed the broken section of earth and with her raw power began to spin it around as it created a make-shift shield for herself aiming to catch the remaining senbon as she spun the broken bit of earth like a fan. Her aim was to wait out till inedibility the umbrella ran out of amo then charge fast as she could with her new makeshift weapon aiming to clobber Azumi.

Course, as she saw a new canteen belt around the kunoichi she knew she could not rely on just taking the belts. She had to get the scrolls to limit her supply.

 

[=Nightshade=]

Karui wiped sweat from her brow, too tired (and cranky) to respond to Kaito’s words. However, she did call over one of the less-injured, able-to-stand caravan members over and directed them to start passing out the solid food and some water bottles to the people who would be able to consume it. With first aid mostly complete and no one in absolutely critical condition, Karui grabbed some remaining bottles of water and began to help the more badly wounded drink, supporting their heads and letting the water drip between their lips. She also snatched a slab of what seemed like dried meat and began gnawing on it herself. Gotta keep my strength up.

 

[kyuukestu]

Land of Hot Water | (Sept 30 , 5 Days after the Exams)

Titled Name: Yan Xia Roulan

True Name: Sagisō Ajisai​

Rank 36 — Heavenly Skillful Star | Yan Qing​

Sagisō rolled her eyes and then gestured towards the area where Karui was treating patients.

“Then you’re on med duty,” she wouldn’t bother arguing with the girl, if she was a medic then Karui would be able to save on chakra. Speaking of saving chakra...

“The rest of you,” gestured to the ones that seemed to insist on doing nothing, “are on battery duty.”

“Form a semi-circle behind your healer of choice and begin transferring chakra.”

It went without saying that Sagisō would be sitting behind Karui, at the very least she would ensure her sister's chakra remained topped off or close to it. Without further distraction seconds turned to minutes and an hour's work saw the injured of the caravan stabilized.

- - - - - -​

The caravan lurched back into motion, a bit slower and a bit divested of goods. The smaller number of carriages, in turn, meant more free horses and in a show of gumption, Sagisō claimed a pair for herself; a healthy mare and stallion. She couldn't think of a good name on the spot and certainly wasn't going to let Asahi name her horses, so she referenced her equine acquisitions by their color. The stallion was Bay and the mare was Sorrel.

Riding on Bay, the Skillful Star's brow was locked in consternation. While she hadn't been in a rush to grow stronger before, Asahi's earlier display of power had shocked her. It was to be expected though, jinchuriki weren't revered because they were weak; it was quite the opposite. If she wanted to stay ahead of that—then she couldn't be content with where she was now.

The foundation of all power was, well, precisely that—a foundation. Sagisō's own foundation was tied to her identity, that of the Skillful Star. For those in the know, a Star Name wasn't just a fancy title, it was also a general descriptor of what the person was capable of. The titles represented a family of skills and abilities that had been defined by the primogenitor and—along with their name—had been passed down to successive generations.

Those skills were called battle techniques and each star had four ranks of skills: Heaven, Earth, Dark & Yellow.

The first Skillful Star, Yan Qing, had been a master of unarmed combat and archery; befitting her name, she was also proficient in fine arts. This translated to Sagisō's proficiencies in unarmed combat and shurikenjutsu, the latter clearly being a replacement for archery. As the third star of her name, Sagisō had studied the combat techniques of the previous two Skillful Stars and a number of her shurikenjutsu techniques had been parsed from their archery techniques. They weren't true battle techniques, lacking power, potency, and concept, but they served her well. Her skills with shuriken were without question, after all, she'd made it to the final round of the chunin exams and pressed her opponent by relying on them.

However, it was occurring to Sagisō that perhaps the chūnin exams was no good measure of skill; after all, she hadn't even met a handful of worthy opponents. She didn't discredit the notion that perhaps she'd left the exams before she could meet anyone truly powerful, but given she was in the final segment of the exams a handful of powerful people would've been the outlier rather than the standard.

Actually, following that line of logic, the chunin exams functioned perfectly as a benchmark, a line of demarcation. Those that could breach that line were exceptional in their former class, but merely the standard in the new class they'd entered. It did seem strange to her that the shinobi would lump such disparately powerful people under the same title but she couldn't begin to guess at the reasons for their inefficiencies. Regardless, she was going off track.

Although her skillset had been sufficient to keep pace with the opponents she'd faced during the chunin exams, it was clearly lacking in raw punching power. Her water shuriken was designed with utility and support in mind; they entrapped, concealed, distracted, and platformed. Lacking the innate sharpness of wind or lightning, water shuriken would never tear through defenses...not on their own. This was a simple truth that held for most basic forms of water release. Water was the gentlest and least offensive of the five elements. Wind currents cut, Fire tongues burned, Lightning arcs shocked, and Earth, well, it was in the same vein as water. Neither innately cause harm until a significant force was applied to them. There, Earth exceeded water by virtue of its weight and hardness.

Throw a rock fast enough and you could break a bone, throw a water balloon at the same speed, and the best you could hope for was some bruising. That wasn't to say you couldn't break a bone with a water balloon, you certainly could, but you'd need to throw it faster and harder than a rock. There-in lay one of water's greatest strengths and also its weakness—mimicry. If you hit it hard enough, it would mimic the firmness of the earth; pressurize it enough, and it would mimic the sharpness of wind; infuse it with heat and it would burn like fire. To an extent it could mimic the other elements, it would simply cost more chakra to do so, and quite frankly, its mimicries were ersatz.

Spending more to achieve less obviously wasn't a sustainable strategy. It only worked for people who had so much to spend that they could simply outspend the competition or those who came up with discounts. The two main schools of water release users were thus: shinobi who had enough chakra to cover the extra costs of water release or shinobi who discounted the cost by carrying a water source.

Sagisō was neither of these. She wasn't born with massive chakra reserves and while on the island she forsook portable water sources. Her fighting style focused on minimal expenditure and conservation; small scale water shuriken that didn't cost much to create along with her water shroud which was a sustained technique and had a one-time creation cost. With sustainability down, she had then adopted additional utility through the Starch Syrup Capturing technique and additional power at a steep cost through the water fang.

All that being said, it was apparent to the girl that her perceived lack of firepower was quite tainted by recency and usage bias. If she had only used her heavy-hitting jutsu once and at a reduced level of power then obviously upon review it would appear that she lacked oompf. However, that in and of itself drew attention to the real issue. She didn't lack firepower, she lacked a willingness to use it and the reason came back to cost. Although she could enhance her various water release by applying water fang, the cost-vs-utility simply wasn't worth it. In addition, she'd only been encountering opponents with stupid large amounts of chakra to waste and fire release.

She had decided against using water shroud for precisely that reason. It would force her into a more direct confrontation, where her water would be evaporated and despite spending less chakra as the fight went on it was ultimately a losing fight. As they said, enough Quantity became Quality. This wouldn't usually be an issue as people born with unnaturally large charka reserves were rare...or at least, they were supposed to be. They seemed to be popping up everywhere though, flexing their god-given genetics. Alas, some people had to carefully hone their fighting techniques and others simply threw massive amounts of chakra at a problem. Such was life, she couldn't blame people for riding their genetics. Oh, wait, yes she could—they were full of shit and had no skill to speak of.

Of course, if Sagisō herself had massive chakra reserves she wouldn't have disparaged them so, but she didn't and so she would. By that same metric, Asahi despite equally large reserves, was exempt from criticism.

Maybe large chakra reserves simply weren't as rare as she thought or maybe she'd just been unlucky with her pick of opponents, either way, the need to adjust her style of combat was evident. Specifically, she needed to add something that could make up for the weaknesses present in her water release. Something that was harder to remove than water, that's to say it wasn't susceptible to silly things like heat and evaporating. Something that would pack a punch without her needing to spend additional chakra on a second-rate mimicry. Something that was both flexible and potent.

Fortunately for her, she'd just picked up something like that. Script Formulae were a perfect platform for exactly what she wanted, she simply needed to fit it into her foundation. It was further fortune that she was primed to do just that. The battle techniques that had been passed down by previous generations of Skillful stars were good references, but they were just that—references. It was the intent that every star create her own battle technique, one uniquely tailed to her fighting style with the work of previous generations as a guideline.

Leap-frogging right over the Yellow & Dark rank techniques, Sagisō dredged up her knowledge of the Skillful Star's Earth Rank. it had originally been called Nine Yin Nine Yang Life & Death; a simple, though wordy, name that acted as a good descriptor for what it did. It combined nine yin-yang pairs into a single technique. Sagisō thought that name sounded lame, so she was calling hers the Enneadic Taijitu. Since she intended to use script and seals to accomplish her task, she was naturally not going to put all her eggs into one, consumable seal-shaped basket. After all, seals were consumed at the moment of their usage unless they were etched onto a medium and she couldn't use her body as the medium for a seal...or could she...?

She'd pocket that idea for later. Although it was appealing to test and confirm if a body could act as the medium for a seal, experimenting on her own body wasn't on Sagisō's list of things to do...yet. Taking a step back, even if it were possible she'd first need to create the seal in question and ensure that it had the effects she desired. Those effects being...well, she hadn't thought of them yet.

Naturally, they had to be yin-yang based, but there were so many yin-yang based things: Light & Dark, Hot & Cold, Fast & Slow, etc. Any pair of descriptive opposites could be labeled yin-yang but not all of them would accomplish what she wanted. Light-Dark was indeed a yin-yang pair, but what was she gonna do with it; blind people? She could already do that effectively with Hiding in Drizzle. Quite frankly, it would be a waste to double down.

She'd need to think of better concepts and applications; she wouldn't be satisfied with creating a sub-par technique.

 

[Retro Master]

Although Yua would be correct in assuming Kiro hadn’t expected the mud ball to be able to bounce into the air, that wasn’t to say they weren’t prepared. Lightning chakra was already being funneled into the fūma shuriken in the hand of the one who had thrown the kunai. He watched when Yua leapt over the ninja tools, getting an even further boost from the explosives that took place underneath it. With the prior pivot, it was also clear that she had opted target the smoke instead. That was all fine with Kiro as he threw the shuriken upwards, towards the mud ball. Attached to this large shuriken were not explosive tags, but what appeared to be just two regular unsealing tags. However, as luck would have it, Yua actually ejected herself from the mud ball herself.

“Gotcha.”

Thanks to his chakra, he was able to freely adjust the trajectory of the shuriken to target her midair instead. Being imbued with lightning chakra meant that its cutting power was greatly increased. On top of that, if Yua noticed the shuriken coming her way, he’d remotely activate one of the unsealing tags, which would release a similar blinding light to that of a flash-bang. Obviously, his own eyes would be shielded while that occurred. He wasn’t going to let her get a free landing. Neither of them were.

The Kiro who had hidden himself in the smoke was already planning to escape the shrouded area in the first place, as evident by the weapon that had been in his hands. A fūma shuriken coated in gunpowder and about a dozen explosive tags. The shuriken also had the same two unsealing tags that the lightning enhanced shuriken seemed to have along with a sliver of his own chakra. Fortunately, his prior preparation allowed him to prematurely leave the blast radius before the mud ball could crash down and then exploded. Kiro jumped back out of the smoke just in time to avoid the mud explosion and got enough space to avoid the poisoned mud projectiles that were sent flying.

At the same time, Yua should’ve been distracted by the lightning enhanced shuriken that was thrown. That’s when Kiro would use his free hand to summon a kunai with a smoke bomb attached before throwing it towards his opponent. Immediately after, he used the same hand to summon another kunai, except this one had a flash-bang attached to it instead. The seal around the ball also meant it could be remotely activated. He also threw that one, aiming for the kunai to strike through the smoke bomb, activating it. Assuming Yua was able to look when that occurred and saw smoke suddenly begin to spread again, her eyes would not be able to avoid the flash-bang in front.

Of course, with the smoke in the way, he wouldn’t be able to accurately determine when the flash-bang was in the right position to activate. Fortunately, his duplicate was. Considering Yua would’ve only done a backflip or two to escape the range of the mud projectiles, he was more than safe on the walls. If Yua looked in the direction of the smoke, the flash-bang would be activated by the Kiro on the wall of the arena, blinding her from the shuriken he would throw if everything had gone smoothly up to this point. All of this was to hide the explosive surprise from her line of sight for as long as possible. Even then, they were both still prepared to follow up as their hands moved in preparation and the Kiro behind the smoke moving to get a better vantage point.

 

[jade421]

Yua's ears quickly picked up on the sound and crackle of electricity that sounded in the air, amazingly it seemed that this Mist ninja had been prepared for her efforts and tried to stab her in the air with some likely element enhanced kunai. To make matters complicated, when she turned as she worked on a hand sign of her own a blinding light struck her which cut her vision off in a blinding haze as she finished her hand sigh but the lightning fused shuriken seemed to land clean hits. Poof! However, it seemed Yua opted for a defensive measure as sudden she had been replaced with a log which had taken the hits for her as it was sliced in pieces by the shuriken and had fallen harmlessly in place. Yua had successfully swapped positions and landed on the ground as she quickly reached into her pouch.
Aright, how about this...

Yua knew once it had been confirmed it was a log that had taken a hit instead of her they'd try to map out where she had been as she had warped to the opposite side of where she had been supposed to land. So after that thought, quickly she pulled out what seemed to be a special item; a canister of sorts as she pulled a pinned and rolled it along the ground ahead of her as it'd aim to release some poison gas along the ground which itself would momentarily masked by the new smoke Kiro had produced as she hoped to get some of her clan's toxin in the air though she prepared her next offensive as she had several of her own shuriken on hand and spotted a Kiro who had jumped out to presumably strike her and quickly aimed to toss them to the target before she had began to move to the side. Her aim had been to strike the Kiro with her poisoned weapons before he had a chance to adjust his target and if it had been the real one get a poison in, but if it had been the clone then she'd have one less thing to be concerned with.

Yua had her staff to her back as she had kept on the move, and knowing Kiro would get his gaze on him sooner rather than later, she'd dropped ahead of her what seemed to be a flash bomb of her own as she waited for eyes to be on her as it would explode with a quick cover of her eyes and she was concealed in a blinding light, which allowed her to reach into her pouch as she traced her poisoned hands with some kunai and wire in preparation for her next offensive depending on how the flash affected her foe or not.

 

[Godjacob]

As Tomiko was forced to back up and the senbon shots did land some targets, the fact that her senbon for this round was running out did not concern her. She got Tomiko to move back her position, and now that she was away from the hole that she used to make an escape from, she quickly shifted her hands together in a familiar sequence.

“Water Style: Bubble Barrage Jutsu!”​

Azumi struck as she glazed open her canteen with a stroke of a hand popping them off and rapid bubbles had shot from each in the familiar strike though this time, she arched her shots up so they rose and fell rather than jump to fire down as once more she tried to rain destruction from above. The repeat in tactics might not please the eagle-eyed judges but there was a method to the madness as her umbrella began to descend down towards her.

-----​

“Yeah, figured as much…” Tomiko sighed, a wince on her smile as she withered the senbon storm even with her visible wounds even as more projectiles came to her; this time in the form of those projectile bubbles as they shot up in an arc and rained down towards her. Though ever determined she began to spun her broken piece of the small pillar around and charged ahead as she raised it as a shield. However, rather than stand her ground and fend off the projectiles, she’d move forward. Her pillar spun above her head to protect from the coming projectiles while she aimed to charge and close the distance between herself and Azumi.

Course what looked like her trying to charge at Azumi for a charge was only partially true, as Tomiko advanced to just past where the water bubbles no longer threatened her and once, they’d be behind her she’d take what was left of her safeguard and toss the broken section of pillar forward, right to the Ame Ninja!

 

[kyuukestu]

Crescent Moon Kingdom | (Oct 5)

Titled Name: Yan Xia Roulan

True Name: Sagisō Ajisai​

Rank 36 — Heavenly Skillful Star | Yan Qing​

The five-day journey came to an end as the first of the prince’s boats touched port in the Crescent Moon Kingdom.

Stumped with the issue of her earth rank, Sagisō had stopped ruminating over it in favor of developing a new combination technique. After her final match in the Leaf, she had used a water clone to cover her burns like a layer of liquid skin, while submerged within the clone she had felt it was less like skin and more like an exoskeleton, providing support and additional strength. She wasn’t unfamiliar with coating her body with sheathes of water, she in fact had a jutsu that revolved around that very thing but not once had she ever thought to replicate its effects with a water clone.

However, now that she was thinking about it, it made too much sense. The water clone’s defining feature was replicating the physical capabilities of its user. How the jutsu determined the capabilities of the user were unknown to Sagisō, but the water clone could loosely be considered a puddle of liquid muscle. If she could figure out how to take those properties and create a ‘water suit’ of sorts with them, then she would’ve essentially added one Sagisō’s worth of muscle to her body. The real kicker was that it would be sentient muscle that could assist her or act independently.

With that juicy concept in mind, much of Sagisō’s time on the trip had been spent meditating across from a water clone, palms touching, her chakra circulating through the clone as she familiarized herself with its make-up.

As her understanding of the jutsu and the water chakra flowed within it increased, so too did her ideas on how to change that flow to accomplish her goal. She suspected that in a few days to weeks, she’d be ready to test some of her ideas.

For now, Sagisō turned her attention to the mission at hand. Her gaze was drawn beyond the docks, to the hub of lights that glowed just beyond the forest. After a short trip through the forest, they’d truly be in the capital of the Moon Kingdom and that meant it was time to leave the caravan. Their targets awaited somewhere along the island.

While pondering how to approach the hunt, Sagisō caught sight of several shadows flickering from the treeline. Her eyes focused, identifying them as kunai with smoke bombs attached. The kunai knives were sailing right towards their ship and tracing their trajectory, Sagisō could parse three figures emerging from the forest.

It seemed their targets had come to them.

 

[Hecotoro]

Asahi walked along her new mare, stroking her nose and feeding it an apple every chance she got. She was loving the new horse, to the point she wasn't riding her because she felt bad making her carry Asahi's weight. Kas on the contrary had taken a liking to riding Milk. She was safely curled up on the mare's back, after getting over the fact that Asahi trying to get animals was a common thing. The trip had been long, but peaceful after the incident a few days ago and ideally it would've remained that way, until Asahi's eyes caught sight of the incoming attackers.

"Incoming." She told her sisters as she moved up and positioned herself between the incoming attack and her team. "Buddha's morning breath!"

Thanks to the previous fights she had been in, she had decided to baptize her moves with unique names. Some she was proud of and some she would regret when she got older. The Hasa jinchuriki created a set of hand signals, placed her right index finger next to her lips and shot a strong gust of wind from her mouth, stopping anything that was heading towards them.

"Suta, Tsuki, what's the plan? I don't want Milk or Kas getting hurt."

 

[Godjacob]

As Azumi’s umbrella returned to her the Ame kunoichi quickly began to load up a fresh supply of senbon while her water bullets fired on; always conscious of her supplies. Course the second she had Tomiko had come charging and as her projectiles struck the pillar it chipped away at it but others burst as water splashed on the field with each step Tomiko had taken forward. Azumi flipped back on her caps the moment Tomiko stepped ahead of the arc of her bubbles, and once she checked that broken but no less dangerous pillar her way, the Ame-Genin jumped high in the air and unfolded her umbrella.

With a grace that would betray her ruthless efficiency, she sailed in the air; gliding over the Iwa-kunoichi as she seemed to try and flank her over by the wall and more moist section of the field that had now been behind her. Her attack seemed to have failed, but as Azumi glided down really it had accomplished what she desired.

-----​

Tomiko’s section of her pillar sailed and just missed the target as it crashed at the feet of where Azumi had been, and now she used that umbrella to try and glide over Tomiko’s head. Tomiko kicked her heel out and turned quickly as dirt was shot while she reached to her pouch and quickly tossed a trio of shuriken at her foe.

Tomiko figured that Azumi while she was in the air and using a hand to hold onto the umbrella was vulnerable, and regardless of how she deflected the shuriken she aimed to follow it up with a toss of her kunai as she specifically tried to aim to strike at the hand that held the umbrella.

 

[Grand Master Koop]

The journey following their scuffle with the Hasa bandit group had been rather uneventful to put it simply, but that's not a bad thing. The remaining carriage trip along with the 5 day long boat ride has left Shura with quite a bit of free time, time which he used as efficiently as he could. He took the chance to have Shiho catch up on their training routine, dragging the poor girl out every morning for some sparring matches. The young man noticed that his sister has gotten better, but she was still far from all that she could be. Following his sparring match with Shiho, Shura would typically move on to some mental training, trying to hone his sense and become more aware of his surroundings without being overly reliant on his eyes. The Byakugan are a powerful tool to be sure, but no weapon is truly invincible, backup plans are always welcomed when one's primary tactic fails.

Five days passed in the blink of an eye as the Prince's boat reached the port in the Crescent Moon Kingdom. Shura stepped onto the deck, intending to scout ahead to clear the road for their client. The Hyuga kid of hoped the journey would continue its calm and uneventful pace, but that idea was shattered almost immediately after he stepped out from within the ship. "Oh great, new obstacles appears." He said to himself as he pulled out a Kunai.

Eyeing the attackers, Shura was able to guess that there were at least 3 attackers based on the number of shadows spotted dashing between the trees and the fact that a trio of smoke bomb attacked Kunai were launched the ship's way. The young man reacted quickly. He threw his Kunai towards the incoming smokescreen at an angle, catching the breath generated by one of the Hasa girl who was also reacting to the attack. The wind would help carry Shura's knife through the air, assisting it with both speed and accuracy.

The way Shura threw his projectile would cause it to collide with the the first and second Kunai, hitting them on the tip and tail respectively. This would cause them spin out of their trajectory and make the second one fly into the third projectile, making all 3 to veer off their intended destination.

 

[DemonicHoneyBun]

During the five day journey to the Cresent moon Kingdom. Kaito had been training so he could use jet mode for a longer period of time, but he Mainly focused on creating a new lighting release technique.

Kaito was still on guard around the three girls from Hasa, but he was alright with Asahi, as he didn't think she was all that bad. Although there was one recurring thing that had happened, through out the five days of traveling, Kaito had been having recurring nightmares about a a giant fox with nine tails, he didn't know what to make of the dreams as this was the first time they had ever happened to him before, but he simply kept it to himself as he thought it would be a bother to everyone else.

Once the boat had arrived at the Cresent Moon Kingdom, Kaito was asleep on the deck of the ship from a long morning of training, but he quickly woke up when he had heard Asahi talking, Once he stood up he saw a fight was ensuing, he began to preform some handsigns as he kept his eyes on the targets he was aiming at.

 

[Retro Master]

Unexpectedly, the lightning shuriken ended up cutting cleanly through Yua. Except it didn’t. To the surprise of the one who threw it, a white smoke appeared on impact and what fell was instead two pieces of wood from a log that had been severed in half. The substitution jutsu was a neat trick, allowing the user to switch places with something else. That still didn’t stop the lightning shuriken in anyway. He activated the second unsealing tag, causing explosive tags to rapidly flow out of it while the weapon was manipulated to go towards the real Yua now to his left instead. What it did stop was him from activating the flash-bang his duplicate had thrown.

Speaking of the duplicate, Kiro could sense that the flash-bang hadn’t been activated due to still being able to activate it himself. That meant something had occurred for the flash-bang to not be activated, which caused him to hold onto the fūma shuriken in his hand. He was certain that her capability to avoid the pincer attack had been limited, but perhaps there was one thing he didn’t account for. The smoke ahead prevented him from seeing the fallen wood, so he could only look to his left and right once his feet met the wall.

Fortunately, that did allow him to see Yua to his right. It was just in time to see her roll some canister in front of her. His eyes widened when he saw what was being released. Poisonous gas. He wasn’t sure how much the gas would be able to spread, considering where his position was and the size of the arena. Either way, it would be prudent of him to stop the dangerous gas spreading much further. However, Yua didn’t seem like she was going to give him much breathing room as she saw Kiro and sent some shuriken flying his way. Since Kiro could see her as well, they didn’t take much effort for him to dodge. Only a few hops up the wall from his previous position was enough.

The more pressing matter was the spreading gas. Thinking off the top of his head, he recalled how Tsuki managed to disperse a cloud of poison with only a few explosive tags. In this case, Kiro had something much more explosive in his hand. He still held the fūma shuriken coated with gunpowder, about a dozen explosive tags attached to it, and the two unsealing tags. Without much hesitation, he threw the weapon towards the side of the gas Yua had rolled it from. This was so when it exploded, she could potentially be caught in the large explosion as well.

Although, she did seem unwilling to stand still and the last thing he saw of Yua, before activating both of the unsealing tags on the shuriken, was her seeming to start moving. If she did happen to look his way, then just like with the unsealing tag on the lightning shuriken, she would also see a blinding flash. Of course, Kiro made sure to look away and only activate it a good distance away from himself to avoid the effects. It helped that he would also move away and further up the wall to avoid the massive explosion that was about to come. One that would be enhanced by the falling explosive tags that were being released. Kiro could increase the explosive damage further if he wanted, but was only trying to do some damage to Yua while simultaneously getting rid of the poisonous gas before it could spread further.

Once Kiro felt the fūma shuriken was in a good position to accomplish both of his desires, he would then activate the explosive tags. That would set off a chain reaction, causing one humongous explosion where the shuriken was, amplified by the gunpowder, before more explosions occurred all around it thanks to the explosive tags that rained down from the unsealing tags. Both Kiro and his clone would watch cautiously from a safe area high up on the arena walls. Although they were still split up, both of them knew to be prepared for whatever came next and would ready their hands to begin weaving hand seals once again.

 

[kyuukestu]

Crescent Moon Kingdom | (Oct 5)

Though deflected, the smoke bombs exploded and shrouded the beachfront. A sudden gale kicked up blowing the smoke towards the escort squad—at least one of their enemies possessed wind release—but that wasn’t all, borrowing speed from the gale and cover from the smokescreen, several kunai and shuriken had been tossed. They hurtled towards the group, the sound of their flight hidden by the squall of wind.

@Grand Master Koop @Demonic Bunny @SageNeb @Cmeriwether @ThAtGuY101

 

[DemonicHoneyBun]

Kaito stopped doing his handsigns once the smoke appeared, he didn't have enough time to dodge it, so he had no choice but to breathe it in. Kaito though he had inhaled toxic smoke, but it had seemed that is was regular smoke. Before Kaito could react shuriken and kunai came through the smoke, he moved his body as fast as he could, but he got nicked on his cheek and elbow instead of fully dodging it like he intended.

Why, did it feel like my body not move faster then it should've? I know I can move faster.

A man with long spiky hair jumps over the smoke and lands behind the group wearing a gauntlet. He smiles as the gauntlet opens it eye and glows, as he does this he begins to uproot stone and rocks from the island.
"I was wondering, whou would be escorting the prince, but I wasn't expecting it to be literal children. I guess ninja don't take escorting royalty all that seriously." He cleches his fist and send a total of ten big stones at the group.

 

[Godjacob]

As Azumi sailed she of course kept her eyes on Tomiko and quickly used a free hand to pull a kunai from her pouch as she worked to deflect each shot of the trio of shuriken.

Clang

Clang!

Clang!!​

With a fluid if not flawless grace she also noted the kunai the girl tossed up to her hand on the umbrella as she perfectly tossed her kunai with the intent to knock it out of the air as she landed by the wall as her hands skidded along the soil that seemed to be wet due to the splashed water of her various bubble bullets that burst along it.

“Water Style: Aqua Spike Jutsu!””​

Azumi began to pull water, not from her closed canteens but rather the soaked ground as water seemed to be pulled from it taking a solid form again and shaped into a sharpened set of spikes, before they shot out at high speeds and aimed to drive themselves through her opponent!

With water splashed along sections of the ground and the Earth wall behind her, Azumi had some reusable sources to work with even beyond the canteens it seemed.

-----
Oh…oh fuck!​

Tomiko’s mother would probably not have taken kindly towards the language she used internally, but she had bigger things to worry over as Azumi seemed to effortlessly deflect her projectiles, which Tomiko had expected merely using the distance to try and close the distance between them.

But this hit a sudden fork in the road as Azumi channeled the water that had splashed along the ground and formed spiked extensions that shot ahead towards the Genin! Tomiko attempted to weave between the spikes, moving just around where they struck as she tried to charge forward. At the moment Tomiko needed to close the distance on Azumi as she had kept this favorably to her midrange game and she needed to shake things up now.

 

[jade421]

Yua sensed that an explosive volley had been coming her way, though already she had prepared to shift her position even as her flash bang as she pulled out from her pouch what seemed to be a pair of kunai and some wire. A pair of kunai she had tossed along the wall behind her as she had them latch to it like an anchor and with a leap she pulled herself up to land on the wall. But she had been far from out of the woods yet, her ears when she was on the ground had picked up on something that seemed to sail for her position and as she glanced and she saw a shadow in the light seemed one of those shuriken had been compelled to give her chase.
So, as Yua sailed up she had quickly drawn another kunai and tossed it in the path of the weapon as she heard its electric charge crackle in the air. Course, a regular kunai had no chance against such a weapon, which is why she slipped her own explosive tag to endure it'd go out with a bang.
Okay this guy is clearly just trying to get style points, how many explosives does one person need!?

Yua's thought had been a rather glaring assessment as she had adjusted to her new place on the wall above and behind her original position. She then glanced as it seemed both Kiro's had moved to the walls as well, which seemed like a safe spot as any given how between his explosive gunpowder and the various paper bombs her poisoned canister and much of the field had burst into a chain of explosions as smoke kicked up all around a large section of the field. Needless to say Yua figured this was an...extreme method to try and clear the poison in the air, but she'd be damned it it was not effective.
Okay, time for a new plan...

Yua considered her options internally as she glanced about the wall. She seemed to be about in the middle between the two Kiros, with one further off to her left and one further off to her right, so, she figured if he'd fight with clones then she needed to even the odds as she quickly worked to sequence her hand signs in rapid succession.
"Temaru Art: Poison Clone!"

Yua soon produced a clone of her own body's poison mixed with some early materials along the wall, as the clone looked identical to her and both she and the clone produced their poisoned staffs and seemed to adopt a simple strategy, they dashed along the wall towards both Kiro's, as their goal seemed to be to try and close the distance between themselves and the two Kiros and try to get a pair of one on one engagements. Course, they had been prepared for about anything as while Kiro had no way to know what it seemed both Yuas had something on the mind as they raced to close the distance on them.

 

[Godjacob]

As the spikes shot out the Iwa girl seemed to shift and weave between them as she charged ahead to Azumi’s position. Naturally, Azumi by this point had more than figured that this one was the type to charge ahead in spite of what was tossed that way. As Azumi shifted her sign she had prepared to take advantage of this over aggression.

While the main spikes retreated to their sources, Azumi would wait till Tomiko walked along the wet soil she had traced with her palm upon her landing. The moment that happened, she aimed to try and reveal some water that had splashed along it and aimed to impale the feet of the kunoichi. If successful, or even in spite of that she aimed to send a pair of spikes forward again as she tried to put as many holes as she could with her new offensive.

-----​

Tomiko raced to try and close the distance on Azumi, but given Azumi had just shown she can turn soiled earth into her weapon she really should’ve seen her next offensive coming. Instinct took over as Tomiko’s eyes widened and she shifted to the side in an effort to avoid having her foot be turned to a pin cushion, but it had not come soon enough to save the side of her foot from being scrapped as a trace of blood mixed with the rising water.

Woosh!

Slash!​

Tomiko had no time to dwell on the striking pain of the side of her foot, as she had to move back and to the side to try and avoid the spikes that shot forward for her body. Course the strike to her foot had stalled her response by just a moment, which was all that needed as the two spikes seemed to strike along the left side of her body and just over the right shoulder; scratching the surface of each, but having delivered significant cuts in spite of that as more blood had been exposed as Tomiko retreated back to a more dry area of the field and took a knee as she clutched her side as a couple of senbon had popped out of her body which caused more drips of red to surface.

“W-well….I can see why Keito had so much trouble with you. You are annoyingly strong.” Tomiko mused, but had a smile in spite of her situation as she tried to catch her breath. In spite of the blows, in spite of the blood from her cuts it seemed her spirit had remained unbroken as she tried to formulate her plan of attack.

 

[Retro Master]

‘Of course she avoided that too.’

Clenching his fists as he started to get annoyed by her resilience was the Kiro who had thrown the explosives. It seemed she was very skilled in escapability. That or he was just leaving her an opening. Whatever it was, Yua seemed to be done playing the long range game as she suddenly burst out of the smoke, running towards him on the wall. Unable to look across the arena in time, they didn’t know that Yua had created a clone. For all they knew, the one coming towards them was the real one. In that case, they reacted to punish her for getting too close. Of course, the first thing they did was hop away from her to buy some extra distance to first summon a kunai with an explosive tag attached to it to throw at her. Then they would quickly weave a set of hand seals to perform a jutsu.

‘Lightning Release: Chain Lightning Technique!’

Blue electricity suddenly formed over his hands and cackled as the lightning would stream towards each Yua. More specifically, the electricity targets the water in the human body. This essentially meant it tracks down anything in the vicinity that has water. From there, the continuous stream of lightning would chain from one thing to the next. Coupled with the fact he could manually control the jutsu as well, this usually meant that anyone who attempted to get close to him would be met with quite the shock for as long as the lightning was latched onto them.

Basically, both Yua and her clone would be struck by a stream of lightning from each Kiro if they continued towards them. Still, he doubted Yua was willing to get continuously electrified in order to land a solid hit on him. Kiro half expected her to hesitate midway once she saw the lightning and launch another ranged attack mixed with poison again. That still wouldn’t stop the stream of lightning from chasing her, but he’d probably have to fall back in order to counter. Either way, he was prepared for both a close and long range fight.

 

[jade421]

Seemed that Kiro fancied explosives as he dipped into that well again, however he had started to become a touch predictable as the moment Kiro had hopped back to gain distance the Yua that approached that Kiro stopped in her tracks and revealed her own kunai and tossed it the moment Kiro had revealed his own kunai. With the Yua that perused this Kiro having tossed her weapon just as he began to launch his the aim was to meet it before it could approach her space where it would deflect the incoming kunai and cause the explosion to trigger more on Kiro's side as Yua worked to try and strike it before the explosive tag had gone off. The fact her own kunai had an explosive seal on it had been an insurance policy and well if she knocked the explosion by Kiro's side the chain might have extend to him.
Alright seems he can do things other than just make paper go boom.

Yua, whichever one had been the real one, seemed to take notice with this thought as sparks had began to fly as both Kiros in sync had shot electricity towards the Yuas! Since it seemed that synchronization was the theme here both Yuas adopted the same counter measure as they jumped into the air to avoid the initial strike and had prepared a technique of their own.
"Temaru Art: Poison Spit!"

Both Yuas mixed saliva with their own clan's natural poison and shot several chunks of poison down upon the Kiros; several shots designed to rain down on her foe and whatever electric obstacle he tried to guide in the way. If she could land even one of these spit "rounds" onto the Kiros she might've been able to pop the clone and had the chance to poison him. Course while they had hung in the air they remained vulnerable, so both Yuas had revealed that duel kunai and wire set up the original copied over to its clone as they shot it out to a clean section of the wall and pulled themselves back to the ground. Specifically to a second to the side and behind each Kiro as the aim was to flank her foe as they fired her poisoned shots.
If he wanted to avoid her, she was gonna make it a mission to encircle and close the gap however she could.

 

[Godjacob]

As Azumi’s spikes returned to the earth as the end of her technique she scouted the damage done and seemed to frown. She had managed to get some good cuts in, but they were surface wounds as her spikes missed the meet of the foe. To make it worse, even as she popped some senbons she had stuck earlier out this girl still had that annoying eager demeanor about things; as if it excited her as much as anything.

And somehow that had bothered her more than if Tomiko cursed her name.

“You are quite the character…though I am not sure if that is a good thing.” Azumi said with a dry chuckle as she had her umbrella prepared and looked towards Tomiko as she glared daggers her way.

“Why? I suppose that more than anything I want to know. Why do this to yourself? Look at you? Cuts over your body, a step away from being a pin cushion. You are a mess, and clearly on the backfoot. You should know by know I am the superior kunoichi on this day. So why go on? To prove you are “worthy” of this Tsuchikage title?” Azumi asked, these questions had mostly been rhetorical with the very way she spoke Tsuchikage with such venom in her tone evidence enough of this, but it seemed at her core she wanted to understand her drive.

“Do you fail to grasp you will die if you keep this up? If not by my hand, then another. You nearly were roasted alive the previous round yet you stubbornly pressed on. You’ll never inherit one of the titles of shadow of death as a corpse. So, I will give you once chance to surrender, once chance to preserve your life and chance to reach this “dream” you desire. If you do not take it, then your ambition will only yield an early grave. This is just an exam after all. So let your worthless pride subside for a moment and think the bigger picture…” Azumi advised, as she tried to force a surrender from Tomiko. Cause really by this point she figured she had established her superiority and this extended dance was not a benefit to this girl’s desires or her goal. Why push so hard for an exam battle of all things?

-----​

Tomiko had expected Azumi to try and strike at her while she caught her breath, but it seemed Azumi felt like speaking for the first time. She listened as the Ame-Genin ran down her motive and tried to “encourage” her to surrender as Azumi seemed convinced victory was already hers and pressed why Tomiko had pushed herself so far even if it risked her life and thus put her dream of being Tsuchikage at stake. Though her comment on it “only” being an exam had caught her focus.

If that mindset was true, and to a certain POV one could draw this was just a means to prove your skills and not meant to be a fight to the death, Azumi herself seemed to show signs she had not believed it. Or rather, the energy she fought with seemed to conflict with her casual dismissal of the stakes here. Tomiko collected herself as she worked her own response, with a smile all her own.

“Just an exam? Funny…I could say the same of you. I’ve seen the drive you’ve shown in these exams, this is not the drive of someone just eager to show their abilities for evaluation. I’ve seen you push body, mind and really your soul in these exams. I doubt you would just say “okay I’m good” and call it when it got tough. Your fight with Keito proved that. So let me ask back…” Tomiko said, as she flashed some hand sighs and seemed to smirk at her.

“Earth Style: Quake Strike Jutsu!”​

Tomiko slammed her palm forward and a rumble sounded as the ground cracked and this powerful shockwave extended in a column forward as it drove and aimed to tear the ground apart towards Azumi with the aim to destroy the sections of ground with wet soil and try to drive its force into her. Tomiko had shifted one hand to her pouch as her eyes had lit with that undying fire once more.

“…what are you fighting for!?”​