Starring:
Date: January 31, 2017
Summary:
A brash bear and a bodacious beast fist battle over bacon and bandits.
"Bear-Handed: Bear Begins"
Land of Lightning
A bear is attacking a cat! The horror! Except both of them are ninja and not actually bears or cats, and also the cat is probably stronger than the bear, but Toto cares not! The scarf-wearing, yellow-sweatered, pink-and-black-striped leggings-wearing girl leaps from a pile of firewood towards the Jounin, a bear-like roar bellowing from her mouth as she begins swinging claw-tipped fingers in a fury!
Miyu stands up straight, hands folded together in front of her. She does not retaliate against the bear-girl's fury with her own beast fist techniques. Instead, she waits for the attack to come, intending to circle around it, using her prowess as a monk to avoid the enemy until she becomes tired. But the Ki surrounding Toto's finger tips, and the speed with which she moves are both beyond the Jounin's expectations, and she takes a nasty slash across her left upper arm in the process of trying to circle out of the way.
Miyu leaps backwards to get some distance, and re-evaluate the situation even as steaming blood drips from her wound. This girl is no amateur. Behavior and companions aside, she is clearly capable of fighting proficiently, and has refined her skills sufficiently to make the hardening of fingernails a lethal weapon.
"Is there any chance that we can end this fight peacefully?" she asks of the bear girl, still falling back on her monk training instead of her other skills. Talk problems out, instead of resorting to force. She hopes there's a way to do that this time. "Your companions took from others forcefully. It was not my desire to hurt them, nor is it my desire to hurt you."
Toto's attack carries her past, following through with the momentum of her attack. She plows up the snow when she hits the ground, turning as she does so to face her target. The talking from Miyu confuses and irritates her. Why is the cat trying to talk to her? "You interrupt bacon time! Smash bandits! Say confusing things! Toto no like, so fight!"
She charges back into the fray, swinging her hands like bear paws, trying to swat her opponent with dizzying strength, amplified by her Ki. She does not seem open to conversation by temperament and words, but the fact she responded at all might mean there's still hope! …Maybe!
The girl seems pretty simple-minded. Child-like, but to an even greater extent, based on the way she talks. Miyu doesn't think a sophisticated philosophical approach will work here. She has to keep it simple. Straightforward. Something a child can understand. "There will be more 'bacon time'. The bandits attacked me. If someone attacked you, would you just let them hit you?"
The bear girl charges in, and this time she seems distracted enough that Miyu can turn aside and let the paw swipes pass her. She won't make the mistake of misjudging distance again when it comes to the extension of striking range provided with those claws. It's good that talking seems like an option, at least. Because she doesn't want to have to end this fight through force. If she had to, she isn't sure someone like this would go down without being hurt badly enough to be hospitalized.
Toto has never fought someone this dodgy before. She has fought ninja before, and even beaten them up enough to get them to teach her basic ninja skills (which was a trial in itself, given her mental aptitude and her difficulty separating Chakra from Ki). But none of them moved like this. Someone who is dodging a lot is one thing. Barely moving from where one is standing and just letting her pass them by? That's something else entirely.
An INFURIATING SOMETHING ELSE! "GRRRAAAH! No more talky! Stand still so I can hit you!" Seems she does expect people to stand still when they're attacked. "Show strength! Talk comes after maybe!" she insists as she leaps into the air, rolls herself into a ball, and comes down with claws slashing.
As Toto comes barreling in like that, Miyu narrows her eye. 'It's no good. I'll have to resort to Cat Fist to dodge an attack like that.' She lets her Ki flow through her, and then quick-steps backwards out of range with feline nimbleness and speed. There's a visible SLASH in the air as light glints off of Toto's claws, leaving a streak of Ki where Miyu was standing moments prior. The Jounin is crouched down in the snow, hands to the ground, eyeing her opponent, in a very cat-like stance, and thinking.
It doesn't seem like it's conversation that Toto wants, she just doesn't have the presence of mind to NOT answer when someone talks to her. Honestly, someone like this… But she supposes it fits. Just as one can't argue with a mother bear protecting her cubs, one can not argue with a Bear Fist user who has decided you are an enemy. The only way to stop it is to stop the bear or escape, and outrunning a bear is something normal humans can't do. To outrun a ninja bear is even harder. And a ninja with the power of a bear but the reasoning of a human would be very difficult indeed.
Even with Miyu's skill level, she has not practiced counter-tracking. Unless she relies on pure speed and agility, escape doesn't seem likely. And she doesn't know what kind of sensory abilities this opponent has. On top of which…
She raises a hand, and sends Ki through her fingers until her fingertips sprout claws.
"…It's not in a cat's nature to simply run when faced with a threat."
This person may want her to prove herself through strength. But that doesn't mean she has to go all out. Instead she bolts forwards, slashing at Toto, but her other hand is behind her back, and draws a sword hidden in her waistband. Regardless of the results of her claw strike, she sends herself into a spin along the ground, trying to sweep the legs out from under Toto, and then try to press her blade to the Bear Fist Kemonoken's throat to make her realize her position and stop fighting.
Toto is running low on Ki. She didn't do her warm-ups properly before fighting, so her energy levels are low. She is aware of this in her head, but her drive to fight pushes her to keep going without pausing to recover her strength. She scowls as Miyu avoids her costly claw attack, but her eyes widen briefly in surprise, letting out a 'hmmm!?' when the Cat Fist user settles into such a cat-like stance.
"You show your cat at least!" she says while squinting at her opponent crouching in the snow. She wonders why the Jounin isn't wearing any pants. But then her enemy is lunging at her, and it's all Toto can do to leap back out of the way in time! The claw strike comes just short of cutting her, tearing a few threads of yellow sweater off across her belly instead.
When she attempts to roll herself into a ball again to get some distance, channeling the last of her Ki, her legs are swept out from under her the moment she lands. She hits the ground on her back, snow flying up in clumps, and then she spins across the dirt and snow on her back until she hits the pile of firewood with her head. "OW!" she lets out.
She feels cold steel to her throat, and her eyes snap up to look at Miyu over her, with a sword drawn.
Toto stares back into the single, yellow eye of her enemy. Her gaze is defiant, fierce, unbeaten despite her position. This is the first time Toto has ever lost. She scowls and then says, "You win wrestling, Cat." Then she brings up an arm and extends her hand, expecting to be helped up apparently. "Now can talk."
Miyu stares calmly back. Despite the pain of her claw-rent flesh, and the blood continuing to drip from the parallel furrows where those Ki-enhanced fingernails dealt their damage, when Toto seems to admit defeat and expect a hand up, the Cat Fist Kemonoken is perfectly fine with cautiously standing up straight, sheathing her sword and pulling the younger Kemonoken up to her feat. Of course, if the bear girl tries anything, Miyu is still on guard.
But she is willing to give this obviously confused, even if powerful, kunoichi a chance to explain herself and see reason. "My name is Miyu. Can you tell me your name? And why you are with these people? They do not seem like your type."
"Hup!" Toto lets out as she lifted, and then hops up on top of the fire wood to sit. "Toto is Toto. I am with bandits because they give bacon." She then just sits there and stares, no less fiercely, but without animosity. She apparently expects this to explain everything.
Miyu waits. And waits. And waits. But it seems no further explanation is forthcoming. "…I see. It is nice to meet you, Toto." It seems that talking to Toto on the level of a child is even too much. She needs to tak to her like she would a bear. Which means… "These people are not going to have bacon anymore soon. If you want more bacon, you should come with me back to the Hidden Cloud Village." …Bribery it is. She can't allow a talent like this to be wasted on criminal pursuits. And it seems like Toto can still be an upstanding and semi-reasonable person/bear if she has a guiding hand. As well…
Miyu doesn't want to see someone who didn't know any better punished under shinobi law. She'd be far more useful actually fighting FOR the Cloud than locked up somewhere or worse for fighting against it.
Toto may not be as dumb as she talks, acts, and thinks, because when Miyu offers her bacon, she doesn't immediately leap on it. That's already been tried on her before. She looks around at the bandits she has spent all these months with, and then to Miyu. "…More strong people like Cat at Cloud Village?" She doesn't seem interested in calling Miyu by name. Oh, well.
Miyu nods without needing to think about it. She keeps her tone calm and informative, friendly but not too energetic one way or the other. She wants to keep things peaceful and reasonable, even if she must make her speech very simple. "There are many strong people in the Hidden Cloud. Some as strong as you, some as strong as me, and some even stronger. Would you like to meet them?"
The Bear Fist girl mulls that over. She has always been very strong. She has not lost even to ninja bears for a very long time. When she was a small child, restling ninja bear cubs, she defeated them handily. When she was strong enough to face juvenile ninja bears, she was strong enough to defeat them. The same for those adults she faced, though she could not claim to have wrestled all of them. This whole matter of human ninja and so on has just confused things so much. For a while now she has felt like something was out of place here. Like she was lost and growing more so.
She didn't know what was wrong with her life after leaving the Hidden Bear Village, but with so many things different or making no sense there had to be something else she should be doing. She looks around at the weak bandits that depended on her, the food she simply took instead of hunting or winning… They treated her as a comrade, but she could tell they viewed her more like a living weapon. They feared her, and were just trying to pacify her. Like a wild beast. Like one of those 'normal' bears she has run into, that has no idea what it is to enjoy a wrestle to determine dominance.
But this cat person before her… She uses the same kinds of jusu that Toto does, is strong, supposedly has bacon, and knows of a place with lots of other strong fighters. That's what she set out into the world to do originally, wasn't it? To meet humans and other animals and wrestle them all? To learn about the homeland of her mother?
She looks down at Miyu, and the wound she inflicted, and how unfazed by it the older woman seems to be. More people like her… Or even stronger.
Toto nods her head. "Toto go."
Miyu smiles, though it can't be seen properly behind the wrap over the lower half of her face. "First I need to tie up all these bandits and turn them over to the authorities. If you can help me find all the remaining bacon they stole as well, that would be appreciated. There will be plenty more when we get back to the Hidden Cloud." And with that, the two Kemonoken set about building a different life for one who was almost led astray.
