Another day of training? (P, NK)

Checking that her opponents were ready? It was honorable, but foolish for a ninja. Personally, he would probably just have started as soon as he himself was ready. Nevertheless, he was glad that she did not do that. Because otherwise, he might not even have had the time to do anything, let alone get his puppets out on the field of battle, and use their shields to block the attack. Masaru was not even sure if the puppets could block that Water Dragon Technique yet, and he would rather not test that, unless he absolutely had to. Fortunately, he did not have to do that as of right now, as Ayumi had made sure that everyone was ready.

As she had done that, it was pretty much trivial for Masaru to perform a few seals of his own, while waiting to see what Ayumi would do with her seals. While he was a bit taken aback by the fact that she needed only six seals to perform the technique, he had had time enough to make five seals of his own. More specifically, the five seals requires for the Substitution Technique, which he used to replace himself with a log lying near the trees of the training ground. You just had to love those logs. When he had switched places with the log, which would put him at a comfortable distance of around 15 meters or so from the river, Masaru pulled forth two scrolls, each of which had one of his puppets sealed inside it, which resulted in two puppets puffing into existence, each of them a few feet in front of him to either of his sides. Each of them had a cloak like the one that Masaru himself wore, although their hands were visible. Or rather, one hand was visible, as their other hand, the one that was on the side facing away from the other puppet, had a gauntlet on it.

Well, this maneuver had succeeded in separating them, at least as far as Masaru was concerned. Hideyoshi, being insanely fast as he was, might not agree with that, but for now, Masaru did not believe that he could expect back-up from his teammate. This meant that he might very well be vulnerable to one of Kahen’s illusions, but the best way to prevent that from happening would probably be to keep the illusionist occupied. For that reason, Masaru sent both of his puppets, which would be moving with a speed of 47, towards his male opponent. Should they succeed in getting in close, they would try to his Kahen with their gauntlets, while using the other hand as little as possible, as that was the hand that held the chakra shield mechanism, which he would have the puppets use if dangerous things, such as kunai with exploding tags or powerful techniques, were sent their way. While doing this, Masaru would be keeping an eye out for Ayumi. While he hoped that she and Hideyoshi would be locked in battle for a bit, he nevertheless preferred to know where she was, so that he might be able to evade further attacks from her. It would not even disturb his puppets that much to dodge things such as kunai, as he was now able to use it while moving.

WC: 2937 (+552)

//I assume that she no longer throws the kunai, as he has now got some distance on the river. Please let me know if if that is wrong.//

{Nope, she just is on the river with kunai on her hand now}

Hideyoshi smiled to Masaru as they began to get ready and before the fight had commenced," Good luck Masaru and try not to get hit by the boomerang," as it was said he would simply stand there with his hands in his pockets. Once she had performed her water dragon technique, Hideyoshi would have already had a plan for this attack and smiled as he stood there. Around his body, five hexagonal shields started to move around his body, one of his many mastered techniques as it seemed like he was in a trance. As the dragon was about to hit he would anchor himself to the ground with the tree walking technique as the dragon hit hard, and luckily he wouldn't be pushed back, but the damage he would feel to an extent.

Once the attack was over the shields would be dropped and his eyes would return to normal as he turned around and saw that Masaru had avoided it, but now Ayumi was sitting behind him. Smiling he would wave his hand to her and activate his cloak, the now blue symbols mixing with his black colored chi as he smiled," come on Ayumi and let us see what you can do, after all i need to keep you a little busy," as he spoke a concentrated ball of chi would float into his left hand that he would soon smash onto the ground to create 50 five inch needles that would hover around his body, rotating in orbit like a planet.

Now the fight was on and he would not let Ayumi have the first move as he flicked his wrist forward, the ten needles he sent forward moved at 48 speed with 24 strength as he controlled them with precision. Once the ten needles came within the five meter mark, he would wave his hand as all ten split into a squad of five and circled around her as he used his second hand to coordinate the attack. Bringing both of his hands down, the circling needles would converge on Ayumi at the same time, making a hailstorm of needles fly at her, and if succeeded she would have ten of them in various spots of her body except for anywhere near the head or neck area. Since he was not trying to kill her, he would not aim for the vital points such as the body's pressure points or major arteries, but he would aim for places that would immobilize her.

TWC=2048

Of course, they all started out fighting. Kahen sighed as Ayumi summoned her water dragon and attacked the duo on the other end. The red hair does suit her personality, Kahen thought with laugh. Kahen shook his head, who would be laughing at a time like this, I need to get serious, he thought as he watched Ayumi run off towards the water. Should I follow, or what should I do, he thought until he realized they were distracted. Maybe this was her plan all along. Kahen watched as Ayumi stop near the water and getting ready to throw kunia when he heard something coming his way.

Kahen turned his head and saw puppets flying at him. Kahen immediately turned around and ran to the trees. Deja vu, he thought as he jumped into the air since the puppets were literally flying at him. He did the hand signs for the clone technique and summoned a clone behind him, in the air. The clone would then put his feet on Kahen's back and jump off his back towards the puppets and force of the jump would propel Kahen to the highest branch of the tree. The clone should be able to hold those puppets of his off for a short second as he come down, landing on the tree branch and immediately jumping down from the branch to the ground.

Kahen looked around and formed the hand seals for the clone technique again and did the hand signs for demonic illusion: False surrounding technique and made the clone transform into Hideyoshi. Now, if Masaru comes, he'll think it's Hideyoshi and it will give me enough time to figure something out, he thought to himself as he hid in a bush and watched the clone just stand their waiting for Masaru.

WC:1389+300=1689

As Masaru used Kawarimi to dodge her dragon, she was on top of the river. It seemed like the teams split up after these actions and she was to deal with Hideyoshi as Kahen dealt with Masaru. She was fine with how things turned out because she thought Hideyoshi and Masaru made a better team than Kahen and her with Masaru's puppets used as defensive resources, but like this both her and Kahen had good chances individiually. She had to trust Kahen for now and do her best against Hideyoshi, Kahen wouldn't stand a chance against both of them, neither would she.

She was going to talk to Hide a little, indicating how it seemed like they will fight each other for a while 1v1 when he suddenly attacked with his ball of needles just like every spar, it was like his signature move. She was prepared this time, last time she had allowed 6-7 of them to go through her shield but she was getting better with her technique since last time. As the needles were coming she created her shield and focused to his attack. The needles were coming fast like last time, but they weren't just coming at her, they were uniting and surrounding her before Hideyoshi decided on the right moment. She kept her focus until Hideyoshi directed the attack.

It took all of her focus to stop all the needles coming from everywhere but she slowed each one of them simultaneously, stopping them before they pierced through. After they were all stopped, their energy disappeared along with her shield. She didn't want to waste chakra, she was definitely going to need it in this spar. "My turn!" she yelled, confident in herself after stopping all the needles. She threw a smoke bomb to the ground and whispered "Mizu Bunshin", 3 Ayumis ran out of the smoke bomb. A clone would be in middle, looking like it just left where Ayumi stood on, Ayumi herself would be to the right while the other clone would be to the left. Ayumi and her clone to the left started running towards Hideyoshi faster, if uninterruputed she would go into taijutsu combat with him, first the clone to the left would try to punch him in the head, then the real Ayumi would try to sweep his legs. The clone in the middle would stay a little distant, making the seals of her water dragon jutsu, baiting him to attack the clone.

If this succeded and Hideyoshi ran towards the clone, she would now create her water boomerang from behind him and try to get him like the last time. This would cost her a lot of chakra but she had to try such big jutsus if she wanted any chance against Hideyoshi. If Hideyoshi somehow understood he is being baited, she wouldn't try the boomerang water jutsu yet.

WC:1687

How would Hideyoshi and Ayumi do against each other? Well, that was a question that Masaru could not claim to know the answer in. Hideyoshi definably had the speed advantage, but Ayumi had a rather good defense in form of her water techniques. These techniques could, naturally, be used as attacks as well, but Masaru guessed that Hideyoshi would be able to dodge most things thrown his way, unless he was very close to where the techniques was casted from. To Masaru, it looked like a stalemate, with neither of the two being able to hit each other with anything. Or so Masaru guessed. It was, of course, a mere guess, and he could not count on it playing out like that. He had to focus on his own fight, while only keeping an eye on the match between Hideyoshi and Ayumi now and then, and only to make sure that the match was not decided in favor of Ayumi, which would allow her to flank Masaru.

Well, it was better to worry about his fight, and hopefully assist his teammate once that was over. That would, however, mean that he had to defeat Kahen first. And in order to defeat the illusion user, Masaru would have to be able to tell illusion from truth. The puppet user knew of two different kinds of techniques at the moment. The first of which affected a person, causing the target to believe that something was different from the real world. That might be that weapons, surroundings, or even making a person unable to see something. Illusions were certainly to be feared. The second type that he knew about, he had most of his knowledge from helping Kahen train a technique. This type of illusion would not target someone specifically, but rather an entire area. Masaru had witnessed both large and small illusions of this kind. But the large one had been obvious, while he had had time to sit calmly and think about the minor one in order to spot it. He would not be that fortunate this time, he was sure.

While he could not be completely sure, Masaru did not believe that Kahen could hit him with the first type of illusions at the moment. However, the second type of illusions affected the area surrounding Kahen, which meant that he could make some alterations that might fool Masaru’s sight. As might happen right now, as Kahen performed the hand seals for what Masaru believed that he had used when they trained the False Surrounding Technique and… Nothing happened. Was the technique not supposed to alter something? Was it something that Masaru would merely not yet notice, such as completely blocking a tree or something from his sight, which might result in Masaru hitting a tree or something like that? Well, as of right now, the only thing that he could do was to try to defeat Kahen, forcing the illusion user out of the fight.

With that in mind, Masaru had one of his puppets go for the first clone that Kahen had created, while sending his other puppet against the other clon… Wait a second. Was that Hideyoshi? But he was fighting Ayumi right now, was he not? The fight could not have been over that quickly, which meant that this must be the first illusion of the fight. Well, either that, or Hideyoshi had really ended his fight already. If this was the case, they already had the advantage, and hitting him would not do anything major to the balance of power in the fight. Besides, he would probably be fast enough to dodge the puppet’s attack. So he made both of his puppets fly at one clone each, intending to bring them down on Kahen, once they had finished off their respective clones.

WC: 3573 (+636)

Hideyoshi smiled as he had not even made his sword yet, he decided to only use Taijutsu this time for a fairer advantage unless of course he needed to. As the ten needles converged upon Ayumi he stood by and watched while the others were floating around him like a planet in orbit. She stopped the ten better than she did the last time and even without damage, but the last time there were more than ten. As the puff of smoke came from the spot Ayumi was supposedly at he would see three of her jump out and two run at her. Smiling he would move his hand in the air and move the needles into the air and slide his hands into his pockets. The needles would remain there for as long as he kept his hands in his pockets or willed them to move.

As the two Ayumi's came within two meters the first would throw a punch in which he would dodge by moving to the opposite direction, his body moved into the air as he hook kicked the left clone in the side sending her flying and using the momentum from the first kick he would propel his right leg out to give the other Ayumi a crescent kick to the stomach. If the actions were to go as planned both would be pushed away and the clone dispersed. Now his right hand would move from his pocket and towards the Ayumi that stood back, sending twenty needles in her direction at 48 speed. If these were to hit, they would impale her arms and legs and dispel her as well. With the last of the needles he would point at the real Ayumi," Ahh Ahh do not even move my dear...seems like this is check," although she was stubborn he knew what could happen so he had them on standby while he looked at her carefully.

2370

Kahen watched as Masaru, who looked around not for sure what to do when he saw Hideyoshi. Kahen smiled when Masaru nearly fell for his clone trick but that still gave him enough time to think of something. Kahen did the hand signs, Ram → Snake → Tiger, for another clone and summoned him up, then Kahen did another set of hand signs, Dog → Boar → Ram, and transformed himself into a single leaf. The reason did this is so could hide from Masaru as he would try to follow his clone off into the woods as he would go back to help Ayumi. Kahens leaf body then fluttered down to the base of the trunk. Kahen's clone stepped into the opening locating for Masaru to notice the clone. When Masaru would finally notice the clone, the clone would then immediately run back through the woods until either Masaru finally catches up or the clone would finally just disperse. Either way, this would allow Kahen enough time to go and help Ayumi, if he needed any assistance because Kahen didn't know what Hideyoshi power was and Ayumi could've already lost by now. So, if Masaru did follow the clone, Kahen would transform back and rush to find Ayumi. 1689+205=1864

//Throwing speed of the senbon/Kahen?//

(Erm, 32?)