Training turning sparring, redux (P, NK)

"There is no point in training here, open areas are always better for training, you should know that as an academy student." she smiled with an arrogant face. She understood that he was asking this question to learn more about her and was impressed. On the other hand Kahen was just looking down and shaking his head, who knew what that guy was thinking? He seemed like a weird guy with his attitude and way of speech but she knew many of the greatest had such characters too, that's what made them special so she couldn't underestimate him too.

She didn't walk too near the river, but didn't stay too far either to keep it a secret for as long as possible. Kahen was now standing 8 meters in front of her, 30 degrees to the left and the peaceful river flow was to her right, 10 meters from her. Masaru was still walking when Kahen indicated he was ready. Ayumi took her left hand to her pouch, ready to get her kunai and confirmed "Alright, seems like Kahen and I are ready, go ahead and start the spar when you want Masaru!"

WC:613

Kahen smiled at the girl as she stood in front of him. He eyed her up and down and realized he never knew she was that short the entire time. 'One punch could like....put her out,' he thought as he looked over at Masaru walking over to them. 'Wait, he's an academy student, so that means he shouldn't know much,' he wondered as he looked back to the red-head in front of him. Now, this girl is a genin so she knows a lot more then Masaru, hopefully. Kahen closes his eyes and his thoughts wondered to the area of the place the stood in. He opened his and looked around the open area, putting the images into his brain. It's a good thing to know the layout of the area before ever getting into a battle. He smirked.

The Zexus listened to Ayumi as she told Masaru to start the spar. Hmmm, Kahen wondered what he was going do as he eyed him. Kahen nodded his head, stating that he should begin the battle. Kahen looked back at Ayumi and saw that she has moved her hand to her pouch. 'So, as Masaru makes his move. She's going to use the weapon or some type of bomb. This could be a distraction, or she could be some type of weapon user. I'll have to wait and find out,' he thought as he crossed his arms in front of him and turned his body adjacent to both of them and smiled. "Good luck to the both of you. Whenever you are ready, Masaru," he finished as his smile started to fade away and his eyes went into an almost daze look. His arms then fell to his side.

WC: 712+292=1004

He had to give it to her, she was cunning. With a single question, she made it so that he would either make himself the obvious target by starting the fight, or make him seem like a coward because he declined the offer to start the spar. A fork, should one speak in chess terms. Had she ever played chess? He had to ask her about it sometime, and possibly have a match against her. She would probably make a good player. But the way to counter a fork was to either threaten the opponent’s king, or move one of the trapped pieces so that it threatened to take another more valuable piece than the other piece in the fork. He was in no position to do either, he could not see the board clearly enough to do that yet, so he just had to cut his losses.

“Good luck to you as well. But I must say, it does not seem very ninja-like to,” he began, but stopped, throwing the kunai that he had taken out of his pouch while speaking, one in each hand, one at each of his opponents. Shortly after he threw it, he performed the Clone Technique, sending a clone towards each of his opponents, Masaru himself began moving towards some of the trees nearby, intending to run up one of the smaller ones, in order to hide himself from sight for a little while, deciding that it would most likely be a smart move to give the two of them a little time alone, hoping that they would use that time to beat at each other for a little while. This way, he might see just what they were capable of.

This was, however, done with the full knowledge that his back would be exposed while he was running, hoping that neither of them had some ridiculous speed levels which would allow them to catch him while running, although he doubted so, since was probably 5 meters from the trees, and he had more distance than that between him and his opponents. However, he could not exclude the possibility that one of them had the speed required, and neither could he merely assume that neither of them had a jutsu which had the range required to catch him in his back. As such, he looked back over his shoulders rather often, hoping that he would be able to dodge a kunai or a jutsu thrown at him, and that he might be able to get in a combat stance if one of them pursued him.

WC: 1520 (+431)

Ayumi glanced at Kahen to see if he'd confirm, letting Masaru start the fight. He looked down on her and nodded. Ayumi had no idea what kind of jutsus they were able to pull off, she knew academy students were not to be underrated, after all she and many of her friends were able to use C-rank jutsus easily when they were academy students. Kahen on the other hand was a genin, and could even be chuunin strength. Well, she was about to find out.

Masaru also walked to the open area and started talking, Ayumi was listening until he suddenly stopped and threw 2 kunai. One of them was coming towards her while the other was for Kahen. Its accuracy was spot on, coming right at her head, unlike most of his training she observed. She thought this was a good time to attack Kahen, since attacking Masaru would require some technique with his kunai and clone on her way. She was able to perform Mizu Bunshin from thin air when she was an academy student, so she didn't know whether these were simple clones that vanish after contact or they were actually capable of fighting.

She quickly dodged the kunai by running towards Kahen and threw him 2 kunai from her pouch, one to his left leg and one to his neck. The clone would still be coming at her but she would have more speed than the clone, so the distance would only open up as Ayumi ran towards Kahen. She glanced at Masaru running away already in the start of their spar, was he frightened already and forfeiting? No, he wouldn't accept the spar in the first place only to forfeit after she showed 2 kunai, this was probably a tactical idea, making her fight with Kahen first and finishing whoever is left later. It wasn't quite the 3-way sparring she had in mind although for now she would allow him to get away.

WC:941

Kahen watched as Masaru threw kunias at him and Ayumi immediately after finishing his sentence. After the sent kunias, clones of Masaru were now coming at him. This academy student means business. Kahen shifted his head, to dodge the kunia that was aimed at the middle of his forehead. As soon as he did that he noticed something out of the corner of his eye. Kahen quickly shifted his head and saw more kunia's coming at him with Ayumi running behind them and a clone chasing her. Kahen barely had enough time to react with the kunias coming his way and jumped back, out of the way of the kunia's. The Zexus watched as Ayumi and the clone closed in on him. Then he realized that the academy was running. Kahen wondered where he was going. He possibly can't be giving up yet. Anyways, he had to focus on eliminating these three first.

Kahen shifted his position towards Ayumi, 'who does this girl think she is, attacking me like that, Kahen thought as he began forming his hands into an ox symbol,"Mist Servant Technique," he whispered as he felt chakra leaving his body. 'This will teach her right, Kahen smirked. If his genjutsu succeeded on her or not he would still begin to run backwards as the clone and Ayumi would continue towards him, until he reached the tree that was located 10 meters from where he was and jump into the tree, landing on a branch. Kahen would then launch himself over Ayumi and the clones. While in the air, he wondered who he should go for; the girl that sneak attacked him or the boy that attacked him head on. He could just leave her to deal with the clones and luckily will be in his genjutsu, so she'll be worn out.

WC: 1004+304=1308

He could not help but feel a little relieved, when he saw that the two genin went for each other’s throat. Or well, Ayumi attacked Kahen, who in turn used some technique, and then… ran away. It would seem that Masaru was not the only one who had decided that running away was not always a bad thing. Speaking of running, his clones eventually reached the point he had sent them off to, and thus dispelled, as they would be on no more use to Masaru. Not like overextended pawns, but literally of no more use, as he had merely intended to use them as a little distraction in order to allow Masaru himself to get some distance between himself and his opponents.

Masaru wondered as to whether or not he should engage them now. For now, he merely began moving through the treetops, in order to get a little closer to his opponents. However, the area that Ayumi had so cleverly chosen had no trees, which had forced Masaru to run around 5 meters, and he had positioned himself close to the trees even before the fight had begun. This meant that Masaru had to run in a crescent-shaped arc in order to get closer to his two opponents, something which he did not like, as it would be rather easy to predict here he would be next time.

Of course, he could try to evade an attack by stopping or changing his course, but if either of the genin used a Technique which might be able to hit the whole tree, he would be in trouble. However, trying to get down on the earth right now would probably be rather dangerous, as it would either involve him jumping straight down to the ground, which he thought that he would be able to manage without hurting himself too badly, or jumping down one branch at a time, which would be safer. However, either of these two would make it rather easy to predict where he would be next, and thus easy to hit him with either a technique or an attack, which meant that he merely continues his crescent-shaped arc through the trees.

WC: 1884 (+364)

Ayumi was running towards Kahen when he dodged the kunai and formed some handseals. After he said something silently 5 black clothed ninjas appeared one by one from trees nearby. Ayumi wasn't sure on what this was, it could be Kahen's special clones or genjutsu. She was doubting her speed, wondering if going after Kahen would be a good idea with these clones slowly surrounding her. She stooped running since she had to test these "clones" so she took out another kunai and threw it at the one to her right. The clone got hit at first, but another head came out of where the clone was hit. This couldn't be real, it had to be genjutsu, there was something peculiar about them in the first place, they were too slow and weren't attempting physical attacks.

{Using : anyone with more than 20 chakra can guess these aren't real}

Ayumi decided it was a genjutsu and ignored the clones hoping she was right and they weren't some other abominations. She started closing the distance as Kahen was running, he wasn't as fast as her, or wasn't running in full speed. He jumped onto a branch of the tree in front of them when Ayumi was almost close enough for physical attacks. Ayumi performed a jutsu insted as they reached the tree, she started creating water in her lungs. Kahen launched himself from the branch over her, was he now going for Masaru first? She aimed at where he would be in 2 seconds, it was easy to predict since he launched himself and was now in mid-air, she turned her head towards him and yelled "Suiton: Mizurappa!".

Ayumi extracted 15 liters of water from her lungs to her mouth and out towards him. It looked like a small waterfall, starting thin in her mouth and getting larger as it got further with a speed around Ayumi's highest running speed. If this was to succeed, Kahen would be hit in mid-air with a decent damage, and be washed away to 15 meters away.

WC:1282

As Kahen was in mid-air, he heard Ayumi shout he technique. 'Of course! Water, Kahen thought, he should've known she would've been a water user since she picked a location near the water. Kahen cringed as he turned his body in the air, and saw the red-head and a huge jet stream of water coming out of her mouth like rocket, straight for him. Kahen knew their was no way to dodge this. He put his arms up around his face, and his legs on his chest as the water came crashing into him. The force of the water propelled Kahen through the air and made him feel like his knees where digging into his chest. After what seemed like flying through the air, Kahen's back came finally crashing down onto the earth near the river. The impact made all the air come out of his lungs and ricochet off the ground. As his body flew into the air again he looked underneath him and saw that he was about to go into the river. He gathered up as much air as he could as he fell into the water.

Kahen felt the cool water engulf his body as he went in. He opened his eyes when he never felt his back hit the bottom and he saw that he started to raise towards the surface of the water. Kahen turned his body and swam towards the surface. Upon reaching the surface he gasped for air, since he's lungs about gave out twice and had to go through hardcore underwater training. Kahen looked around and saw that he was only 10 meters down stream, so the river current wasn't that fast. Kahen saw a part of the river that had a bank, which was only a few feet from him and started to walk up it. Kahen looked around, and wondered who he should go after, but it felt like his back got repeatedly punched into.

WC: 1308+325=1633

As he saw Kahen get blasted by the water wave, Masaru had to wonder what he should do next. Since Kahen was flying towards the river, it was not unthinkable that Ayumi knew some sort of technique which would finish him off, since his suspicions about to her being a water-user had proved to be correct. However, should he let her try to perform such a technique on him? He had been shocked so much about the fact that she could perform such a technique without having access to anything but the water in the air and the earth, in fact, so much that he had stopped his run through the trees.

Nevertheless, he had to take a decision here. His plan had been to let the two stronger genin fight each other, and trying to maintain some sort of balance of power between them, which might then result in them weakening each other or even finishing each other off. That desired balance of power might be in danger now. Because if Ayumi could blast Kahen right out of the air into the river, what would she then be able to do now that he was in the river?

Suppressing a shudder at that thought, Masaru took a kunai in hand, aimed for a moment, and then threw it. He did not aim directly against Ayumi, but rather such that it would, hopefully, force her to stop or dodge it if she ran towards Kahen. The second after he did that, he ran down the trunk of the tree he was currently sitting in, hoping that Ayumi had used up the water around her so that she might not fire off such a jutsu against just yet, which would hopefully mean that the seconds where he was predictably running down the trunk without that many ways of avoiding would be safe.

While running down the trunk, Masaru took another kunai in hand, making a knot with the wire around the handle, and then fastened the other end of the wire to his wrist, hoping that it would not hurt too badly if he had to use it for what he intended to do. However, right now, he merely focused on getting into melee with Ayumi, hoping that he could prevent her from making hand seals. He did not think that he could beat her in melee, but he had to buy Kahen time to get out of the water, hoping that he would see Ayumi as the greater threat once he got into the fray again.

WC: 2310 (+426)

Ayumi watched Kahen get dragged by her jutsu into the river and he was barely getting up his feet when she started to run towards him, this was her chance to finish him off, the river was giving her a great advantage. She was excited, running at full speed as a kunai passed right in front of her head, if she was just a little faster, it could have taken her out of the spar or even out of life. She stopped to see Masaru jumping down a tree's branches to her right, of course he didn't want her to take out Kahen, his plan was to make them fight and tire each other out.

Understanding that going after Kahen in an obvious way is pretty much fighting 2 vs 1 at this point, she decided to prevent this team-up by her opponents by using her special technique before attacking anyone. She took the stance and whispered: "Kirigakure no Jutsu", if not stopped, she would create a thick mist from the moisture in the air, making it impossible to see more than 1 ft away. This would mean one could take one out when the other had no idea, she wasn't interested in teaming up with one of them anyways. Kahen would now be in a disadvantage as his steps could be clearly heard on a river unlike theirs. Ayumi would then take some steps back to change her location, she wouldn't want to get attacked by Masaru who saw her location before she used the jutsu. She wouldn't follow it up with another jutsu, instead would sit there to catch her breath and see if anyone would make a mistake.

WC:1563