Sparring? (P, NK)

It was yet another day as a ninja, which meant yet another day with training. While Masaru had yet to decide what exactly he wanted to train this day, he had gone to the training grounds so that he might be able to do whatever he wanted to. His speed and his chakra were his main concerns at the moment, as they were the two things which determined how fast he could make his puppets go, as well as how many techniques he could cast and, of course, how fast he could get out of the way, if his opponent got close. The last thing was rather important, as Masaru, as a puppeteer, would very much prefer not to be in melee with his opponent. Sometimes he had to as a part of a gambit, but he preferred to send forth his pieces, his puppets, while keeping the king, himself, safely behind the lines, controlling the battlefield.

He did, however, know that he ought to train his skills with his puppet sometime during the day, but for now, he merely had it wrapped in bandages, hanging on his back. While the puppet covered Masaru’s back, the rest of him was covered by his large, white cloak, head excluded, of course. He briefly wondered what he should do with his puppet. Should he put it away somewhere while he was training, to free his body of it? Or should he possibly train his speed while having the puppet on his back, to get used to having it there, but also to make him even faster while he was not wearing it?

For now, he decided to leave it hanging on his back, while he glanced around the training grounds, trying to decide what he should start with. He could try to do some strength training? Being able to crush rocks with his bare fists would be rather nice, although he did not really require all that much strength for his style of combat. Training his health would always be a viable option, as it just generally meant more survivability which would, in the end, most likely decide just for how long he would be able to live. Improving his stamina would allow him to fight longer, but his puppet did not drain that much energy from him, so he could afford to neglect stamina for a bit, at least for the moment. Speed and chakra… well, he should start with one of those. After a few moments of thought, Masaru decided to train his chakra, by doing some water-walking. Besides, it would probably be a good thing to be able to do without much thought.

WC: 444

Ayumi woke up after the ring of her alarm clock, yawning as she raised her arms to the air she quietly told herself "Another day.. I'll make the most out of it". Her uncle was sleeping although it wasn't his off-day, unfortunately his business finally hit the bottom and he had to close his small restaurant. Gortak wasn't the type to give up so easily though, Ayumi and he had a good talk yesterday and she was sure Gortak was fine and would put himself out there to find a new job as soon as possible.

She walked the streets of Konohagakure to the training ground in her usual attire and her pouch filled with 9 kunai, a smoke bomb and a bladed boomerang she gifted herself after her D-rank missions lately. She was planning on training taijutsu today but the weapons were with her because she would be frustrated if she couldn't spar due to not having the weapons with her.As Ayumi reached the entrance, she first looked around for familiar faces to spar with but there were none. She sighed "So I will train solo today huh?" she slowly walked to her usual place near the river, she used this place for her water jutsu trainings but there were also some training dummies there she could use.

When she arrived she saw someone water-walking on the river, he had his back turned to her so she saw nothing but bandages. Seeing him water-walking, Ayumi thought he should be at least a genin rank or a very good academy student, it could be a new sparring partner for her. She was water-walking near him when he turned around, it was the academy student from an earlier 3-way spar, Masaru. She smiled and came near him "Hey Masaru, I see you have been improving since last time. I didn't recognize you from the back with those bandages."

At the sound of a familiar voice, Masaru turned around, and recognized the girl that he had recently had a three-way spar with, and smiled a bit at her words. “If you are referring to the water-walking, then I was able to do that when we fought as well. I did, however, have no desire to do so, as I suspected that you knew some water techniques right from the start, and I was quickly proven right. And the fact that you blasted Kahen right into the river did not exactly motivate me to walk on it.” Masaru said with a chuckle.

“As for the bandages…” He began, and briefly thought about if he should reveal himself as a puppeteer yet, or if he should wait a bit, and quickly decided on the latter. “Well, you will eventually figure that out. Quite possibly rather fast, in case we should decide to make this a spar.” He continued, with a smile. He would like to see how he would hold up against Ayumi, as he did not feel that he had deserved the win he got last spar. She had had tunnel-vision against another opponent while possibly underestimating him, so he did not quite feel that he had defeated her properly.

“But if we do so, it will be on the condition that we get a bit away from the river first. I have no intention of letting the spar start with you using some technique to trap me by using all this water.” He said with another chuckle, as he made a gesture towards the earth. While he would like to test himself against her, he did not like the thought of giving her all the advantages. For that reason, he began walking towards the training grounds, although he was on alert. She could say that she could start the spar now, as he had challenged her to a spar, which would be true.

WC: 768 (+324)

Ayumi was puzzled with his speech on that bandage, she had no idea what Masaru's specialty was in the last spar, what did it have to do with the bandages? He was able to outsmart two genins as an academy student without showing his element or specialty, he was talented for sure, not someone to take lightly, she didn't even know he could water-walk back then, he was good at keeping his abilities secret... or he had none.

Ayumi wore her pokerface as he asked to get away from the river, she chuckled "Alright, let's fight this time without water nearby". What Masaru didn't know was Ayumi had been training her water-heavens convergence jutsu since they sparred and she was now able to extract water from the ground and use it for her jutsus, she had trained this in the training ground so she knew how-tos of this terrain. She was able to drain the water from the ground just like she could with the river, at the cost of little chakra. Also if he underestimated the range of her technique she could even use the river for her jutsu. Lately her range had increased a lot, she was able to create bubbles from upto 100 meters away. Ayumi walked side-to-side with Masaru until he stopped walking. "So, did you see Kahen again? I hope his back is alright."

WC:554

Masaru stopped merely a few meters away from the river. “Well, I did not say that we should go to a location without water, I am quite aware of the impossibility of such a task, I just did not want to literary stand on your element.” He said with a smile. He had seen her use water techniques seemingly out of the air during their last spar, so he did not think that going completely away from the water would impair her that much. But he would prefer not being surrounded by water, as that would make it almost impossible to dodge an attack that she used against him.

“We actually trained a bit a few days ago. Well, I helped him train some technique of his, but it seemed like he was fine.” While saying this, he thought about how this fight would go. From what he had seen in the first match, he could not allow himself to be caught in the air. He would also have to watch out for that mist technique she could use… But on the other hand, he might be able to use that to his advantage, if he could make her use that early in the fight.

But that would involve him fighting without his puppet for a while. Well, he might as well try to make her do that, he thought, and took a kunai in his right hand, binding his wire to the handle, with the other end of the wire being tied around his wrist, and took another kunai in his other hand. Well, if he could make her think that he was some kind of weapon-specialist, the mist technique would probably be her most logical move. Although the weapon-specialist thing would be true, since a puppet was technically a weapon as well, it would not be in the sense that he hoped that she would think.

WC: 1086 (+318)

"Alright" When she saw Kahen pull out his kunai Ayumi formed 10 small bubbles around her, not surrounding her but randomly located. She was able to stop Senba's weapons with her shield so she didn't have much fear against weapons, unless... Masaru was a weapon specialist. Well, she would just defend for now and see what he has to offer in his arsenal. She knew that threats were always better than executions so she didn't form a shield yet, this way he would not know whether she was on the defensive yet and would have to deal with the threat of her attacking.

She also took 2 kunai out of her pouch and held them with her left hand, two of her fingers spinning them as she waited eagerly. She brought lots of kunai to this battle anyways and using 2 to test him in the start wouldn't really be a waste of kunai or stamina, she would still be on the defensive. As soon as she threw them at the same time, one to his stomach and one to his left shoulder, she yelled "Here we go!"

If Masaru were to dodge both of the kunai, she would just wait for his attack and see if her shield is sufficient. If not, he would take serious damage from the one coming to his stomach, while the other one would make his hand seals slower.

WC:795

Masaru dealt with her attack in a manner that he would normally not have done. Instead of dodging or deflecting her kunai, he merely grabbed his puppet, still bandaged, with his right hand, placed it against the ground slightly to his right, and then leaned it to the left, so that it blocked both kunai. After that, he spun the puppet around, and took his two kunai. “Thanks for the ammunition.” Masaru said with a grin, as he put his puppet on his back once more. When he had done that, he took one of the captured kunai in each hand, spinning them a bit as well, and then threw them back at her, one aiming at her stomach and her left shoulder, like when she had thrown the same kunai at him.

However, when had had sent her kunai back at her, he threw two of his own after her as well, aiming at the same places as before. Come on, would the right way to reply to this not be to use her mist technique, especially since he had already seen it, so it would not be revealing anything? Well, he could understand it somewhat. It was logical to try to test your opponent in the basics before moving on to techniques. He would, however, try to keep his speciality a secret for as long as possible. Better to keep her guessing, since he already knew hers, and as such he could plan against it. Well, he could try anyways, as he had yet to come up with a better plan of action than ‘run away or evade’ with regards to the technique that she had used to blast Kahen into the river at first, and later used to all but defeat him.

WC: 1381 (+295)

He was consistent in his secrecy, he blocked the kunai with the thing behind him but didn't open the bandages. Ayumi had two guesses, it was either a big weapon/shield or a puppet. She expected a shield and a big weapon the most, since he'd probably show some of his puppetry during their last spar at least but he might have learned it after their spar, so she couldn't be sure.

He threw 4 kunai towards her with decent speed, she brought the bubbles in front of her to create a semi cylindrical water shield around her, that only covered her front and protected her sides a bit as well. She focused her chakra to push the kunai back in the water to decrease their speed, she almost failed and took a kunai to her head when she trained for this with Senba but now she was ready. When all 4 kunai were stopped in the midway, she simply picked them up from the water. "I should be the one thanking." she chuckled as she formed some seals.

She performed Mizu Bunshin to create a clone behind him, out of thin air. He would obviously see the seals and look around but she also threw the 4 kunai to get him distracted 2 to his stomach, the others to his left shoulder and right shoulder. Now he wouldn't be able to block all the kunai with his "bandages" and stop her clone behind him, ready to stab him from his back with a kunai of her own. She wondered if she overdid it as she performed this combo but it looked like he wouldn't show his secret otherwise.

WC:1039

“I’ll be wanting that back when this is over, by the way.” Masaru replied, with a shrug, before he began analysing the situation. Two kunai in exchange for making her show a technique that he had not seen before was more than worth it. That technique might very well have negated an attack of his later in the fight, had she not shown it now, but he already had a plan to work around it in place. Well, right now he had to deal with 4 kunai and… something. He had seen her perform hand seals, but nothing had happened that Masaru had been able to see. Well, that was troublesome. That was a thing that he quite liked about chess. You might not be able to know what your opponent was about to do, but you would always have full vision of the game.

Well, he could try to turn around to see if anything was happening behind him. Or well, he could in theory, but the kunai that was now flying at him denied him that opportunity. It would seem that he would have to break one of the rules that he established for himself already before the fight had begun, as he had thought that he could not take to the air, as it would make him an easy target for her. However, he did not see that many other opportunities. Sure, he could dodge to a side, but that might be what Ayumi was trying to make him do, so that that the unknown technique might do something to him, whatever it might be.

Well, he had already used his bandaged puppet to counter one attack, so why not another? With that thought, Masaru grabbed his bandaged puppet yet again, but instead of merely using it to block something this time, he swung it over his back and put it into the ground, and then used it to launch himself into the air. He kept his right hand to the back of the puppet, and used chakra threads to make sure that the puppet did not fall towards the earth, while making it appear as if he was holding the puppet as a shield. These chakra threads, however, would be invisible to Ayumi, as they were cast at point-blank range on the puppet. This also left his left arm open to throw another kunai at her. While airborne, Masaru spotted the water clone that she had created earlier, and he made a mental note as to which seals she had used to create it.

WC: 1809 (+428)

Masaru used the "bandaged thing" again to launch himself into the air, he was still not showing what it actually was, maybe it was what it was. A bandaged blocker. Although she wasn't succesful in seeing what his secret was, she managed to get him up, mid-air. She dodged the kunai by moving right, it was only one kunai after all, she couldn't waste time blocking at such a fortunate time. She formed big bubbles from the water in her previous shield and more from the river to send them with full speed towards Masaru's landing point.

These were the times to attack for a defensive ninja and water users were generally known as such, Ayumi was more aggresive in her earlier fights but was trying to implement this defensive way of fighting to her trainings. The bubbles united along the way, forming what seemed like one big fist. If this were to connect, it would have the same destroying effect of her dragon jutsu, a B-rank jutsu. If not, she would take her stance again and wait for his move.

{Can you declare a distance between us next post... if you dodge :P}

WC:1250