This walk should definitely have taken longer

"Sure, I can show you both," Ashi chirped happily.

When Kukla turned to Goru for a cue all her would get was a nod. That was all. Nothing more nothing less. Though, in the moment the Nazar boy looked to Goru, Ashi had already bound gleefully to the door much faster than any normal human should be able to. Chai, on the other hand, remained still.

"You two go on," Goru grumbled in what was clearly mock anger. "I'll just stay here and watch Chai."

Hopefully Kukla was quick on his feet, because Ashi was already holding the door for him again. Once the boy had left the bar she'd let the door close behind her and turn to the boy.

"Alrighty," Ashi said no in particular. "The best junk shop around here is Tuturu's place. Come on we'll stop there on the way to the training grounds."

And she was off. Not too quickly so as to lose Kukla, but with some speed. Dodging in between pedestrians and every few steps cast her gaze back at Kukla as if to make sure he was there. Perhaps the best way to describe her demeanor and movements at the moment would be childlike.

A few blocks out of the entertainment district Ashi would stop in front of what could only be the most rundown building in all of Konoha. A passerby might actually take the sign that read 'Antiques' on it as a label, not a sign. Certainly it was an antiques store, but one could also see that the windows were stacked high with gizmos and gadgets. Tuturu, once upon a time, lived in Sungakure before immigrating to Konohagakure; suffice to say she knew puppets. Sure, she was a bit on the older side, but it did not matter, she knew her stuff.

"You should probably go in alone," Ashi stated plainly. "I'm always afraid something will fall on me in there."

A pause as if Ashi's brain was trying to think of the right thing to say next.

"I, um, I'll wait out here," She said with a noticeable slur. The alcohol was starting to be metabolized.

Doing the only sensible thing a person in Ashi's state would do, well, she took a seat on the street and leaned her back against Tuturu's storefront watching the passerbys. Completely normal, right? Right?

(ooc: I've been thinking about how I could fit in puppet building with training that might work better for you, I'm thinking of eventually building and testing puppet mechanisms, working towards a whole,. that can be used in "test combat", Ashi providing the test combat part, and using it to try out her own things. Eventually he could just put the remainder of it together in the end. So something like Iron Man 1, with assembly and almost immediate testing in combat, except hopefully less bloody. There are other things I might be able to train as well though, too)

Ack! In the brief moment that Kukla checked back with the stout barkeeper, his guide had already gotten going, and quickly at that!

Scrambling to catch up, Kukla got out a quick “Thanks Boss!” to Goru before trying to take the door handle from Ashi so he could be the one to close the door, she had already done it earlier for him so he felt it appropriate to return the favor.

To be honest, Kukla was a little glad that Chai might stick behind, Miss Ashi seemed fairly easy going, but he was not good at reading animals for the most part.

Tuturu? The name rung a bell, it might have been a shop that Kukla saw in the whirlwind that was the scramble to the Taproot, or it might have been a name he heard in the wind, he wasn’t really very sure, but he would find out soon.

As he scrambled to push through the crowd to keep up with Miss Ashi, he tried to keep track of the roads while dodging wayward pedestrians. He had big plans for a big puppet and honestly, he hoped to find out all he could about puppet making here.

Ashi suddenly stopped, and this time Kukla was too far away to even worry about bumping into her this time. Wow, this building looked really, really old. Antiques? Maybe the label was an inside joke, or something, from the building’s appearance. Perhaps it simply needed a caretaker. Hmmm…. Maybe he could pull off another trade like he had with Goru until he could earn money more effectively.

A brief glance and a brief functioning of his ears showed that Ashi was going to wait outside, her slurred words indicating that the alcohol was taking effect. Perhaps this was why Goru had decided to keep an eye on Chai instead, his unhappy appearance earlier might have been due to his friend’s drinking. Kukla began to wonder what kind of relationship they had, he would probably ask if he remembered later. "Ok, I'll try to not make you wait too long Miss Ashi." He spoke just as he began to walk inside. Of course, this was after gawping at the stuff stacked in the windows, piled up. If those were any indication, he could definitely see why Ashi thought stuff would be haphazardly organized in there. He was fairly certain she was joking about stuff falling on her, the stuff in the window wasn't THAT bad, just very... tall. Ok, maybe she did have a point after all.

As he pushed open a rickety door that creaked so loudly that there was no need for the little bells dangling from above that began a gentle tingling. Stepping fully inside, the door creaking loudly shut behind him, Kukla stared open mouthed in amazement. Clearly, whoever worked here was an architectural genius, there was no way he would have been able to stack so many gizmos and mechanisms, with or without the boxes that dotted the room, in such a disorderly fashion, without any of it falling. He barely heard "Just a minute" echo from the back of the shop, he was busy watching for any stacks or such that were likely to fall over. Ok, Miss Ashi was definitely understating things here, to say the least.

"Why hello, you must be a new face here."

Kukla jumped with surprise, having been fascinated by a slowly rotating contraption. He saw a slender older woman in her late sixties, whose hands were covered by heavy working gloves full of little parts. Goggles and an oversized apron were worn above work boots, and dirty pants, that had clearly seen their share of grease.

“Why, yes, I’m new in town indeed. I’m an immigrant of sorts, and a new friend brought me this way when I expressed interest in puppetry. Do you happen to have any recommendations for this kind of thing? Also… I’m… well, its kinda awkward.”

Kukla rubbed his head ruefully.

“I am not well off at the moment, to say the least. Wasn’t much money where I came from, and I haven’t had a chance to earn anything here yet. Would you be needing a helper, or know anyone who might be looking for one, by any chance?” He started off a bit shy all of a sudden, but her gentle presence warmed him up a bit.

He paused a bit, as she tilted her head, dark brown, greying locks swinging towards the floor, as if she was sizing him up. “Tell you what, I think I can trust you. Be here tomorrow, lets say around 8 am, I need help resorting out some bins of parts. Well, more than some, a lot. I have a bunch of extra bits here that have gone unused for a while, I’d be willing to give those to you along with a few other staples of a good puppet, if you can help me tomorrow. I have trouble reaching up above my head now, and you look like you could use a bit of exercise.” This last sentence being given with a nudge and a wink.

The thought of mostly free parts was quite encouraging to Kukla. “That would be terrific Miss Tuturu, err, what would you want me to call you?”

She chuckled lightly. “Haven’t heard “Miss” in my direction for a long time. Just Tuturu is ok, that’s what everyone calls me now.”

She looked around her for a bit. Then she gestured at Kukla to follow. “Come, I have some spare parts I can give you now.”

She zipped off, her familiarity with the shop obvious from the speed at which she traversed the narrow strips of floor, mostly obscured by parts. Kukla walked at a much slower pace, carefully trying to not brush anything for fear it might tumble over. Eventually he made it to the back, past the only clear spot of the shop – a counter with an old till on one end, where he saw the old woman wrestling with a medium sized sack, he clinking of parts within quite audible.

“Want me to help you with that?” he inquired.

“Well, if you can be here to help me tomorrow for sure, 8 am, you can help me dispose of these parts.” Tuturu winked at Kukla as she spoke.

“Will do, thank you so much for your generosity M-.  Tuturu.” Kukla caught himself just as he started, remembering what she had said a little earlier.

Exchanging farewells, he stumbled into the street, the bag weighing in heavily against one shoulder, the sack protruding a good couple of feet from where it rested against his back.

Looking for Ashi, he would walk up to her if he was able to find her. “Okay, that turned out a bit better than I expected, I have a few ideas at the training ground…. Which one do you think would be best to use?” He figured a reminder might help, if she was still a bit wiped out.

[Sounds chill to me, onwards!]

Odd looks, Ashi was used to them. Be it from walking around the village with monstrous looking dog or, in this case, sitting outside a junk shop watching people go by. Every now and then she'd laugh, well, she'd giggle at someone walking by her. In fact, the color in her normally pale cheeks came from a combination of drink and laughing. No, she was not embarrassed, how could she be? This was who she was for better or worse, for now anyway.

The woman's blissful state was interrupted by a familiar voice, Kukla. She had almost forgotten about the boy. Here she was thinking she'd come to spectate the odd and ends of Konoha's community. No, that was not the case. Though, what struck Ashi the most about Kukla was not his words or his gentle prompting towards the training grounds, but rather his smell. It was odd and a bit different than before.

"You smell like old," The woman stated with a leery gaze.

There probably should have been something else she should have said like 'old books' or 'old person', but that was not case. Instead it was simply the word 'old'. Nothing more.

"It's not the best smell; I'd consider a bath at some point" Ashi said nodding to herself as she stood up. It was a smell probably no one else would notice, the boy included.

"Training grounds...training...grounds...Let's go to the academy one. They should be empty, class got out ages ago."

And off she went. Her stride was as quick as before nor her path as straight. No matter how much tolerance Ashi had it was very hard to overcome her lack of weight; her body simply wasn't made for drinking too much as her increasingly sluggish movements made abundantly clear. Sure, she still got some weird looks here and there, but she made her way to the training grounds well enough. Hopefully, Kukla had followed closely, not that the woman would be hard to follow in the slightest.

The training grounds were, as Ashi had expected, empty, for the most part. A small group of genin were flicking shuriken at a lone target near the academy building, but otherwise the grassy field behind the academy was open.

"So, what's the plan?" Ashi questioned Kukla as she stretched out her back by rocking her torso from side to side until a satisfying crack could be heard. Perhaps it would have been better for her to sleep yet here she was. Better yet the woman knew she still had an evening ahead of her; she could feel the hot-springs already.

Uhhh, what?

“Smell like old? What do you mean by that?” Kukla glanced into the bag of parts he had on him and nothing there looked too shabby. “It’s not the parts I got was it?”

Wait, she thought he needed a bath? True, Kukla had been travellign a good while before he arrived, and he had not had a shower today or changed clothing for that matter. Actually, he needed to buy some more clothing since all he had was the stuff on his back atm. Backpacking without a backpack for the win.

He followed Miss Ashi through the stream of pedestrians, wondering what the academy would look like. Would it be like the defunct one in Volcano? Hard to believe since this place was so lively and, well, healthy in comparison. But, appearances could be deceiving.

As she came to a stop, he spoke up. “Is it always like this?” He gestured around him, hoping she would get a sense of what he meant – the people, the appearance, and so on. He hoped it wasn’t just a façade, or preperations for a festival that people going.  “And, are you ok? You are starting to seem a little… wobbly?”

Both being directed at Miss Ashi.

He set down the bag of parts onto the ground. “Plans? If you don’t have anything going, I was planning on trying to make some mechanisms from this stuff, perhaps you could help me test them? Stress testing, and whatnot. That being said, I’m working on this enhanced version of these chakra strings, that I need to test out first. Would you care to spar a bit?”

As he spoke, he began producing chakra strings from his fingers, focusing on splitting them as much as possible. For the most part they were formed fully but some of the strings on his right hand weren't quite there yet, to say the least.

(sorry fuzzy a bit)

[Dreadfully sorry for the wait.]

Ashi did not skip a beat as she bounced her way to the training grounds nor did she even bother to explain her comment about Kukla's smell. It was self explanatory, right? Perhaps she took her sense of smell for granted. How odd it must be for others to lack such a vital sense. Even in her current state the Inuzuka could not live without her nose. Sight, hearing, taste, feeling she would be fine with losing them all, but not her ability to smell the world around her. Scent was everything yet so often people overlooked it as a secondary sense. How wrong they were. Scent painted a picture more vivid than any artist ever could and evoked emotions stronger than any concerto.

"No, it is not always like this," Ashi said with a shit-eating grin. "It's often much warmer."

An awkwardly long pause as the woman cast her gaze around at the early spring scenery.

"Give it a month or two and it'll be there! As for me? I'm fine! Never been better, in fact!"

Ah yes, she was at the yelling stage. Wonderful how it went. How quickly the drink moved through her small body was always quite impressive. Body-weight was always a killer in these kinds of situations.

"Mechanisms?" Ashi asked with a childlike tilt of her head. The connections were not there in the woman's head at this time.  Chakra threads...mechanisms...No, she couldn't see he was a puppeteer. Perhaps in a different state she would have put two and two together. However, today was not that day.

"Sparring I can do though!"

A slight hiccup.

"Don't go easy on me Kukla!~" Ashi teased as her cheeks turned a rosier pink-a further side-effect of the alcohol. It was strong stuff, perhaps it was the snake in the bottle? One could never be too sure about such things.

Another hiccup as her whole world spun around a bit. Placing her hand to her head for a moment Ashi took a moment to steady herself before throwing a halfhearted punch into the air. No, it would not hit a thing, just more air.

Sparring while inebriated, is that a crime?

Probably...

Whatever.

(its ok, I make you wait too
also FYI gonna train a ton of stuff at once XD)

Hm. Kukla had half a mind to try to assemble a puppet while sparring with Miss Ashi, but her inebriated state made him reconsider, given that she might take offense where none was intended, and that he had no idea of her strength. Indeed, even to one as naive as Kukla Nazar, Miss Ashi was getting to be quite clearly dizzy and he figured giving her the entirety of his attention would be good for now. While he wanted to work away at making a new puppet he figured that if she was willing to spar while drunk then that meant she either was pretty weak like himself, or, she was pretty strong instead and he better watch out. Speaking of drunkenness, Kukla intended to wander about town again later, it seemed likely Miss Ashi might need a place to sleep off some alcohol so Mister Goru might be ok with just letting her take his place for most of that night, or Kukla might just nap on the floor, not like he hadn't done that before.

He began producing more chakra strings from his fingers, trying to make ten from each hand, and coming close but not quite there. Honestly, creating the chakra strings was not that complicated, you just needed to make a good number of ramen noodle shaped appendages from one's body. No, the hardest bit of this was the control, the mental agility required to manipulate 100 different movements simultaneously at times seeming rather... intimidating at the least. Never mind reacting to the opponent, nor controlling one's own body movements. Hm. That brought up another point. He had dire need of practice with regards to the state of enlightenment his clan mates trained to achieve often. In addition h eneeded a puppet ASAP, and as he had never had one before, he doubted it would make much difference what he used. If the chakra strings could manipulate objects....

He used a series of chakra strings to move the bag of parts to the edge of the training ground. He couldn't help but think that he looked like some kind of tentacle monster, with his shiny bald pate as an after thought of a joke, little wannabe tentacles spewing everywhere. Well, hopefully he did not look like a disorganized one. At the same time he tried to tie some of his other chakra strings into knots simultaneously while untanglign them shortly after. Sweat started to bead on his brow and if he was to look disconcerted once in his life, now was probably it. He took some deep breaths, pausing in his chakra string manipulation, and closed his eyes for but a brief moment, beginning to enter what could possibly be called a slight trance, a meditative state.

Slowly his body stopped sweating as much from mental exertion and began to relax, his body seeming to be slightly out of place, his mind feeling slightly disconnected, as if it was sharing the body with another. Perhaps this is what it felt like to be drunk, albeit through artificial means.

Slowly his mind cleared, his senses sharpening a little, and his mind becoming more calm. Reaching into the ground with the chakra strings, he began using all that he had, approximately eighty seven chakra string shapes noodles, to dig at the ground, shaping the dirt and molding it with an extension of his chakra, slowly but surely forming a horrible impression of the kind of manikin used to help artists visualize human poses. One that was quite literally dirty, in its ugly humanoid form, a good 4 feet tall. It had some crude ball joints fashioned from some earth clumps, a rude caricature of a human head above what was probably at one time a large rock. The legs were pillars of sediments, the toes and fingers in a small shapes that could only be considered sharp if one was generous to the groups of such shapes that were largely blunt tipped and conical in nature.

It was a good thing he had began to enter his meditative trance, because this was extremely taxing on his mental stamina as it was. He could nto even imagine what might have happened to him without it, his concentration crumbling would likely have been a good centerpiece though. Yet, for all that effort, fashioning the puppet took but a good minute perhaps, due to the sheer number of chakra threads he had devoted to the cause. Chakra threads that he had added a good 10 to, meaning he had to make another three to be set on that end.

His mind was thinking more clearly than before was helpful, and it occurred to him that he might just be able to make a spare, while in his meditative state, so he began to do such with most of his threads. Two of the strings he found necessary to manipulate the actual puppet he had just made, and four others he connected to some kunai in his weapon pouch, pulling them out and hovering them in the ari next to him, partially for the capability to not commit everything to one attack, partially because it was easier on him in this exhausting mental state. In the meantime, he sent the other chakra strings to work, kneading the ground in a small volume as he labored to make a nicer looking puppet than the previous, clunkly feeling one. For sure, it was a little awkward to manipulate due to sediment in the wrong places of a dirt formed puppet - there were little nicks and extra clumps he had missed the first time, and he wanted to make sure that the puppet was properly made the second time. That and by Mister Goru's account, Miss Ashi could get violent when the situation called for it, so a spare would not be a bad idea. Little did Kukla know what her true nature could be like, with regards to combat.

And here he got stuck again despite his meditative state - he was unsure how to begin this odd spar, aside from how he would probably need to put the dirt back into the hole he got it from in the training ground. He began walking around the hole so that it was out of his way, and sent the first puppet straight at Miss Ashi, both arms bent with the fists just in front and below the shoulders in a sort of boxing stance, the puppet seeming to walk on the ground. If it got within 2 meters on its initial route to Miss Ashi, the puppet would begin to throw a punch that was only most of its full potential speed - Kukla was still figuring things out on this end too. It was only now that he realized the puppet could move so bloody fast - his normal senses would have had extreme difficulty sensing the puppet's movements fast enough for him to control them properly, and the enhanced meditative state did help, but not a ton. The puppet was moving awfully fast, it was like trying to control the projectile from a slingshot from his perspective.

********************

(training a series of things at once: http://naruto-role-play-rpg.forumotion.com/t27533-arahant-bloodline?highlight=arahant
http://naruto-role-play-rpg.forumotion.com/t30602-clay-doll-jutsu
http://naruto-role-play-rpg.forumotion.com/t22448-preformance-of-100-puppets#171453

ttl wc so far: 5734

(assuming Clay Doll jutsu's stat boost for the puppet is intended to be a sub for the boosts from Chakra Threads)
puppet speed: 80 (50 chakra + 10 (Arahant) + 20 cuz puppet rulez)
puppet strength: 35
puppet health/creation speed = 40 (20, +20 from chakra scaling)

kukla's RT would be 20+60 (base rt stuffz) + 15 (arahant level 1 training?) = 95
chakra: 50 +10 (level 1ish Arahant?)
speed is 20

ap: 150-40 (making 2 puppets using dat jutsu)

What was that smell?

While Kukla worked, Ashi's mind wandered. Well, at first it was just her mind. The winds had changed just enough to send a whiff of whatever a nearby bakery was concocting. The woman was certain it had to something with cinnamon. Normally she wasn't one for the overly sweet foods, but the craving for a warm sticky cinnamon bun hit her like a ton of bricks. Second it was her body; one foot in front of the other until she was roughly ten meters away from Kukla.

Then it came, a change in the wind. The smell was gone and it was replaced by a sound, the sound of footstep. Though, they were not normal footsteps. Heavier than a humans too such an extent that they sounded artificial like a moving suit of armor. Turning her head towards the source of the sound Ashi took note of Kukla's creations. His first golem was taking it's first steps as Ashi squared off against it.

Did I agree to a fight?

The golem continued to advance with heavy footsteps; the smell of freshly churned earth filled the air.

I guess I did...

Now, Ashi had literally zero experience in combating puppets. Sure, she knew the theory behind it. Chakra threads of some sort are used to manipulate an avatar or war. Honestly, the Inuzuka never saw the point in puppetry; it was so much easier to simply punch your opponent out. That being said, in her current state, Ashi could think of nothing more than the odd looking earthen puppet. For whatever reason her mind told her that this puppet was perhaps the funniest thing she had seen all day. Of course she could not help but let out an airy laugh as the puppet angled into punch her.

In response to the puppet's attempted punch Ashi would cock back a right hand only a few inches before attempting to meet the puppet in one the more violent fist bumps of all time. If the two fists, flesh and earthen, met then is where the fun would begin as Ashi was in no mind to hold back in the slightest. If the two fists were to make contact then the puppet would find itself literally crumbling. With a chakra enhanced strike Ashi would not only hit the fist, but also annihilate the right half of the puppet sending useless clods of dirt into her hair, the air, back at Kukla, every which way.

If all went well, Ashi would be standing with her right arm fully extended to the right of the left side of the puppet. However, instead of following up on her attack the woman would cast a sidelong glance at what was left of the puppet. Her laughing had stopped halfway through her punch.

"Whoops"

What else was there to say? Drawing back her fist the woman shook it out a bit before returning her gaze to Kukla. For a moment she had had a moment of clarity as a jolt of adrenaline had sobered her up, but it was fleeting and fast fading. A goofy smile spread across her face as her stance widened and she pulled up her arms to guard against whatever was coming next.

[500 ap-30 ap from Chakra Enhanced Strength= 470 ap
Punch strength: 90+65 = 155
Ashi's health: 70
Sorry for the meh post]

sry gonna finish mah post tomorrow morningish??? D:

Kukla was a little astonished at the speed that the puppet traveled at. In fact, it seemed to be a bit faster than what he remembered from Miss Ashi when she was not patiently waiting or slowing down for him. It seemed faster than her current movements too though honestly, between the distractions of holding up the previous puppet, making the second one which was by now well on its way to completion, and trying to not drop the current weapons he had drawn... Goodness.

It did indeed seem that this woman had seen puppets before and knew that Kukla had but a pale imitation for his first attempt, laughing a little at the appearance seemingly, and blowing half of it away with one punch oh my! That being said, he really had made something quite speedy. Uhmmm.... what to do...

As the clumps of dirt of the former half puppet were settling to the ground, Kukla would turn the remainder of the puppet and launch a second attack at the other ninja, sending the remaining fist hurtling at her face. This was partially, well, ok, mostly because he wanted to see that awesome punch again. That being said, he could feel his stamina burning away as he feverishly worked at completing his second, better formed but not significantly stronger puppet, and needed to stall for just a little more time. Whew, what a mouthful!

As the second puppet was in a moment whereupon it was likely to either hit Miss Ashi, in a punch that Kukla would pull a little cause he wasn't interested in hurting peoples, or in which the kunoichi would more likely blow it to smithereens, Kukla would be finishing his second attempt at a puppet up.

The second puppet looked much better formed, much more like an actual puppet, though likely still comical, especially for the inebriated. In fact, it appeared to have movable fingers and toes, something Kukla intended to use fully. As the puppet was being fully formed just to his right (since he had been walking around the hole where the puppet was being formed) about a meter and a half away, there was still most of 10 meters between him and Miss Ashi's starting location, unless she moved much of course.

He would send his four chakra strings holding up the kunai to the puppet, manipulating the puppet to sorta hold kunai in both its fists, the handles pushing against the inner palms, the blades sticking out from between the index and middle fingers angled like a punch dagger, katara, or a wolverine claw thingy. The other two kunai would be held between the first and second toes of each foot, handle to the ground, blade sticking up - an awkward grip but hopefully the puppet was easier to use for this sort of maneuver than Kukla's own body. This time if Miss Ashi took the attack head on, she might get hurt. Well, that was not entirely true, Kukla still planned on pulling his attack at the last second, he didn't want to have to hurt people unless necessary, just a inner nature thing yanno. Still, accidents did happen and if he wasn't able to pull the punch he might just try to drop the kunai instead or something.

For all the semi complicated description however, finishing the puppet and adding on the kunai took but a few moments, moments that Miss Ashi had hopefully not crossed in a heart beat as Kukla pulled out the last of 100 chakra strings he controlled simultaneously. Taking a brief moment, he closed his eyes for a brief moment, trying to sink deeper into him self, clearing his focus, making his systems more limber, even the metaphysical ones. Pushing to use the Arahant more effectively.

A glow would begin to emanate from his eyes and the tattoo would be easily visible in a bright incarnation of light, shining through the odd Hawaiian style shirt he was wearing, the thin fabric allowing for much ventilation and much visibility of inner body glowy things.

So, as he had finally set up his puppet, and unlocked the first stage of his Arahant training stuffs, and finally made his puppet, all a few moments after Miss Ashi would either have almost been struck by the puppet, obliterated the puppet, or both, he was ready for even more introspection during combat. In other words, while he was fighting a strong opponent, it was time for Kukla to distract himself with otherworldly pursuits again.

As the puppet was finished being equipped by extra chakra strings with them kunai, Kukla right away had the second puppet begin marching straight at Miss Ashi, starting at the side of the hole from which it was drawn, beginning to charge at full speed. This time, the puppet would start with its arms in a boxer style guard, as it approached it would aim for a right hand punch again, the blade pointing first, the edge angled up, straight for Miss Ashi's face, not that he wanted to mar it. The first attack would launch when Miss Ashi was about a meter and a half away, due to the length of the puppet arm, the puppet would most likely have hit by 3/4 of a meter away, factorign in the kunai blade sticking out. The second fist would at the same time aim for a gut punch, angling downwards instead of up, blade first again. It would be able to reach just a smidgeon further due to the angle, though this was hardly important in the greater scheme of things.

While the puppet was being sent at Miss Ashi, Kukla took the oportunity to draw four of his shuriken, the chakra strings carefully holding the shuriken from the center to avoid cutting themselves off.

He intended to pull his punches but then again, having seen Miss Ashi blow the puppet to smithereens previously, he was not sure it would matter.


*****
(ttl wc: 6730)

(stats are the same as before for the most part, just have to do ap and do the sharpness afaik. also, Ack! I just realized i forgot to pay for the Arahant upkeep ;-;)

(so that should be 20 ap for the last post, and I'll call it another 20 this one, bringing me from 110 to 70)

sharpness of kunai = 50+57=107

Ew

As it turned out Ashi had not escaped from Kukla's attack unscathed. Much to her chagrin, a small clump of dirt had somehow found its way into the Inuzuka's mouth. Now, dirt, no matter what state you are in, does not taste all that great, go figure. Ashi found such a truth out the hard way as she spit out what amounted to a pebble sized amount of dirt. Of course, such a casual action did not preclude the woman from reacting to her surroundings, far from it.

In fact, in drawing back her fist from her initial punch the woman, caught the movement of the second half of the puppet in her peripheral vision. However, she did not alter her movements all that much as one might expect. Instead, the woman's withdrawing of her fist became an attack in and of itself; being fluid in combat was all important. Even in her state, Ashi could not unlearn what had become muscle memory at this point in her career.

As opposed to simply pulling her arm back into her body, Ashi extended the arm such that it was on a collision course with what remained of the puppet. If all went as planned then Ashi would end her movement with her right arm fully extended at her side such that it was in the same plane as her body, but also perpendicular right side of her body. Of course, such an action would send what remained of the puppet into oblivion as it scattered into more clumps of dirt behind the woman's back. No, she did not much plan on making dirt a part of her daily diet.

A devilish grin flashed across the woman's face; the adrenaline coursing through her body was starting to burn off the effects of drink. Kukla would soon have a true fight on his hands. A fight with two sides, fancy that.

Drawing her arm back to her body the woman took note of her next challenge: another puppet. Certainly the second puppet look a bit better conceived than the first, but that would not change its fate. This much Ashi knew. The poor thing would not even get the privilege of being obliterated in the same manner as its predecessor. No, Ashi knew she had to change the flow of combat. Thus far she had been on the defensive, which was probably for the better, but what kind of a spar would it be if she did not put up a fight?

With the earthen puppet angling around the hole from whence it came, Ashi took action. She neither acted too quickly nor too slowly, rather her movements were well-timed and purposeful, not a single movement was wasted. First her left palm was drawn up and faced towards the oncoming puppet and its master behind it then it was tapped from behind by a right handed fist. Then, what could only be described as an ominous roar of air heralded the use of Ashi's daytime tiger technique as her hands formed a unique hand seal looking eerily-or perhaps it was fittingly not eerily-like a tiger's open mouth. The puppet now only a few meters away from the woman never stood a chance; it was probably too late to change course now.

The first stage of Ashi's attack ripped forth from her palm with all the ferocity of its namesake. The power of the attack itself would not be strong enough to rip the puppet apart, but it would hopefully be enough to send it hurtling back in the direction it came from. The first stage of the daytime tiger technique ended upon hitting the puppet, but instantly transitioned into the second as the concussive force exploded outwards fifty meters beyond the puppet itself. The blast, in the shape of a tiger, would no doubt blow right past puppet and continue on towards Kukla who actually stood at the center of the tiger's maw making it difficult to truly escape unscathed.

Is this the definition of overkill?

How the boy before her dealt with such a predicament remained to be seen. Truth be told Ashi did not really expect him to react at all, she was all for shock and awe. That being said, she did not wish ill will towards the boy, after all she had the means with which to heal most immediate wounds. Plus the soft grassy field behind Kukla would make for a forgiving landing. So, to return to the question at hand: yes, it was overkill and yes it was probably due to the residual buzz that her heightened state of excitement had not eliminated from her system. Though was that really an excuse if someone got hurt? Probably not.

[Total ap: 470-40 for Daytime Tiger= 430 ap left.
Daytime Tiger power and speed: 50, not going to scale it.
Strength of Ashi's hit on the broken half of puppet: 90
TWC so far: 6745]