The Sword and The Acrobat

Valen would nod his head at her reply of being eighteen. It surprised him a small bit, but it wasn’t like the shinobi world wasn’t already filled with people who looked like a variety of ages. It didn’t make a difference if she was thirteen or thirty. She was a shinobi capable of doing her duty, as far as he could tell. He blinked at her words before nodding his head in understanding. “I do intend to as you put it, do some ‘actual training’. What you saw was me still trying to get used to the weight and feel of my sword. I’ve only had it for about a week now and I’d never held one prior.” He would explain as he rolled his shoulders and put a hand on Crimson End as he spoke. “Memorized patterns are indeed useless when the situation changes, but practicing movement and helping them become second nature help you when things do go pear shaped because your body doesn’t need to think to react.” He would say as he looked her up and down. It wasn’t a look of desire or sexual attraction. It was a blatant size up, he was wanting to know if he could possibly take her in a fight. The problem was that besides her saying the thing you’d least expect there was nothing about her that he could use to his advantage. He simply couldn’t tell how strong she was. He shrugged at this and looked her in the eye. “You’ll probably win, after all I’m still fairly new, and I have the oddest feeling you’re not. But would you be up for helping me out with some ‘actual training’? He would as his hand went to the hilt of his sword to prepare for her answer. She came over here to train after all, so he had a strong feeling she would be more than up for the idea.

WC: 322
TWC: 2373

Shiroi would look Valen up and down as he did the same. Then came his inquiry. With a sigh, Shiroi fell to the ground. "Come at me, don't hold back." It was a simple statement, but it was said... rather deridingly. Shiroi was sitting on the ground, so she was prone. She said it with her shoulder's hunched, her head hanging down, with a tone of 'exhaustion' to it, as if she were tired of this sort of thing. Perhaps she was.

She would look tired, as if she were tired of this happening but he shrugged off that though. He needed a strong measuring stick, so that’s what this would be. He would notice her head would be hanging down and ready for him to strike. He’d hope so, because he’d move before she even really finished speaking.

Valen would quickly draw his sword and swing at her the moment she finished saying “Come at me”, drawing his blade as fast as he could manage. The powerful blade would clear the sheath and swing toward Shiroi diagonally from left to right, coming up from just a foot away meaning he was well within range. If she rolled under the blade in the direction he swung from he would use the momentum to aim a kick at that point before observing carefully how she’d react.

WC: 143
TWC: 2516

Dodging was simple enough. Shiroi just leaned back, simple as that. Though, as the sword flew above her, she would turn, shooting her palms towards it. The back of her palms would slap onto the blade, keeping her flesh clear of the pointed edge, as Shiroi kicked off the ground. With a mild spin, she rode off the ground, landing with both feet planted on the sword. Valen would be able to make out the movements, but it would be difficult, and well faster than he could easily react to. Given a few more moments, he could perhaps find a solution. For now, however, Shiroi stood upon his sword, and her hands would let go, forming (a) handseal(s) needed to cast Surface Walking. She had no intentions of getting off this sword.

[[-AP of w/e surface walking is]]

Valen would at one moment be swinging his sword, when in the next the girl he was swinging it at would bitch smack his blade, stopping the momentum before doing a quick spin move and standing on it. He would barely be able to track the moment but he could easily hold her up. He would raise an eyebrow as he held the sword, with her standing on it. He could easily notice the surface walking technique being used and could see the unspoken challenge of ‘Can you get me off?’ He would blink for a moment at the moment as it literally was one of the oddest things he’d ever seen in his short shinobi career before shrugging and activating his sword Crimson Flash ability. Two crimson disks would fire out of the sword straight up between her legs aiming for the crotch shot that most people wouldn’t take due to it being ‘dirty’. They however were shinobi and as such tricks such as this did not blur the line in terms of what is and is not acceptable. If she got off the sword he would wait for her next move. If she somehow did not he would shrug once more, swing the sword with her on it and extend it as its whip form, and hence taking away the ability for it to sustain her weight.

WC: 229
TWC: 2745

Cute she thought, forcing her hands back together. A pulse drifted through her body, and soon she kicked one leg off of the sword. Her position would be one of a standing split, with the two discs flying past her vertical legs, not touching them. However, the movement did not stop there. No, her leg would continue has her body would curve up. Technically Shiroi's back side was towards Valen during this moment, but that was not the strangest thing. See, Shiroi's legs started to go well past the 'splits' point. Her lower pelvis would point towards the air while her legs would appear to be standing normally except... growing out the wrong way from her hips. Were she to be right side up and her back to be straight upwards, her legs would be running alongside her body, only ever so slightly angled away from it. A holy unnatural position it was.

Essentially, her torso was hanging from below her hips. However, that was not the end of up. Shiroi contorted her back during this movement as well. Her torso would curve unnaturally, causing everything above the diaphragm to be vertical while the area from the hips to the top of the diaphragm curved. This allowed her to look upon Valen from this... practically unholy position. Further more, the foot that had been in the air had attempted to take position upon the hilt of the blade. She was not trying to step onto Valen's hand, but if that was not an option, so it would be. Imagine, surface walking upon another person.

Shiroi's hoodie would be affected by gravity still, being pulled down to her upper chest. This only revealed her stomach thankfully, which was hidden by the angles involved with her position anyways. She would have to rectify its movement when she had the chance, having forgotten to do such before dodging the disks.

Of course, if the blade was made a whip, her weight would shift entirely to the foot on the hilt.

Valen was taken aback by the acrobatic and extremely flexible movement. So much so that it took him a moment to get over the fact that this girl just DID this, while standing on a damn sword. He furrowed his brow for a moment, not wanting to make this too easy and simply turned his sword ninety degrees. This would force her to either let herself drop off the sword, or freely stand on the blade itself. Which would be ill advised due to how sharp the sword really was. He just thinking about what to do when his mental roommate came to join him. ‘Hey you know that girls really flexible, that could be lots of fun if you know what I mean. After all, you and her are in the height of your hormonal stages. Don't tell me you didn't think of this too’ It would say with a smoothness to its voice as it assaulted Valen with various provocative images of the girl who was standing on his sword. Valen was shocked into pausing over what in the world his sword had just done enough to warrant his own thoughts on the matter be heard by the voice of the inanimate object in his hands. It also should be noted that Valen hadn't had any inappropriate thoughts cross his mind until the thing decided to butt in and be 'helpful' ‘Damnit you stop that! Have some respect for the woman, and MY mental peace!’ He would scream in his head in anger, thoroughly done with his swords crap as the voice laughed darkly. Until Valen actually went out and killed people this was his only form of amusement after all. It certainly did beat being stuck in that damn cave.

WC: 293
TWC: 3038

[For anyone reading, Valen asked that we ignore AP costs, and then suggested that I hand wave keeping the mind reading going since I never specifically ended it, and had originally planned to end it a few posts ago by stopping the AP payments.]

Shiroi was trying to avoid gaining too much information about his thought process about the fight, to make it perhaps a tiny bit more fair. Even so, countering the boy turning the blade was an easy feat. She just let her body turn with it. She now stood 'on' the blade, parallel to the ground, by the magic of 'fuck you logic the jutsu works like this'.

Around this time is when Valen's mind was... assaulted is one way to put it. Subsequently, Shiroi received all the images. All of them. One particular scene caught her attention. It involved the rock face behind her, a certain type of suit being worn by both of the humans currently in the area, and the use of the hilt of the sword in a... non-standard manner. This was not the worst scene, mind you, there somehow managed to exist even more degrading thoughts. Valen was lucky it was easy to tell apart the sword's thoughts from his own.

The emotions drained from Shiroi's face. She stared at Valen before dismounting from the sword, untangling her body as she landed. A smile would curl on her face, but it was not a nice one. It was the sort of smile that was obviously not truthful. There was malice in the smile.

Shiroi would walk up to Valen, reaching for the wrist that held the blade. "Let. Go." It was said cheerfully, but forcefully. Her goal was to wrap her hand around Valen's wrist such that he would drop the blade to the ground. If this occurred, she would pick it up and walk a few feet away with it. The smile would be gone, though now a look of curiosity would exist on her face as she examined the blade, turning it through the air.

She would turn towards Valen, had this all gone down as planned. The hilt would be in one hand. while the other hand would carefully hold the far end of the blade such that it would not cut her. The blade lay parallel to the ground, with the center point directly above Shiroi's knee... which was raised off the ground.

"May I break this thing?" she would inquire.

Valen felt the shift in her emotions almost instantly before realizing the young woman must have still been reading his mind. This would have caused her to be assaulted by the same images he had been. He blinked a few times before sighing and hoping she didn’t maim him beyond measure for this before she grabbed his wrist and said ‘give it’ the grip was designed to force him to let go but honestly she didn’t need to. ‘I would have given it to her regardless for this one..’ He’d think as he let go and watched her examine the blade. ‘Hey, what is she doing?’ The voice would ask before she assumed the position and asked if she could break it. ‘No NO, that isn’t necessary, I’ll stop.’ The sword would say frantically before Valen would raise a confused eyebrow at it’s words and look at Shiroi, did his sword feel pain when it was snapped? He knew he could repair it. But did it actually hurt? “Just give me the hilt side afterwards and sure..” He would say before an immense shrieking was heard in his head, causing him to wince heavily and grab his head in pain. His eyes clenched shut as the pain shot through his skull like a hot nail. He wanted it to stop, needed it to. It almost brought him to his knees. He wondered if her mind reading ability caused her to feel the same pain or if she just heard the shrieking. “Please just hurry..” He would say between clenched teeth as he fought the pain down to look normal, or at least as normal as possible for a shinobi.

WC: 279
TWC: 3317

Shiroi COULD 'hear' the shrieking within Valen's mind, though.. it was significantly lessened for her. Or perhaps mind reading did not quite take everything. However, she could see the pain in his reaction to it, and decided to hurry this along. She threw up the sword, slapping her hands together. Two techniques were cast, Perfect Cell Transformation and Chakra Enhanced Strength. Her strength was now maximized for this shot. With an Iron Grip, she would grab the blade by the flats, directly above the hilt. The blade shattered at that point, completely detaching from the hilt. She would catch the still functional piece and throw it back to Valen, curious to see why he had agreed to her breaking it and still wished for the hilt back.

Also it should probably be mentioned that her skin is currently a flashing seizure warning of a ton of vibrant colors.


[[I've done at least 800 words so far in this topic. I'm pledging 4 stats from that to strength so that I can pull this off.]]