Starring:
Date: October 30, 2010
Summary:
First World Ninja Tournament match between Tsukiko and Meruin
"First World Ninja Competition - A Measure of Progress: Tsukiko vs Meruin"
Kusagakure — World Ninja Competition Arena 2
Once aganin, fireworks would signal the start of a new match. The crowd was roaring, as the boy wonder Meruin made an upsetting victory over the mother of the wind Shemri. The crowd would be on the edge of its seat, the adrenaline of the spectators and fights alike rushing, craving for more. IN a swirl of fresh green leaves Konohas senior chuunin Hiroshi hyuuga would appear. "Welcome to the second Match in this tournament!" he would shout out, raising his voice to the crowd. Now with both hands clasp behind his back, Hiroshi would take several steps forward as he stands in the middle of the ring.
"Now I present to you, your fighters! On my Left, From the land of fire, and my pupil, I give great honor in introducing you all to, Abe, Tsukiko, your next contestant!" he would shout, his voice lifting high, as he gives the young girl time to make her appearance, giving her a thumbs up and a smile. Clearing his throat now, Hiroshi would turn to the right, "Now, On my right, I give you the youngest competitor I have seen here, and the one who has impressed me the most. The Land of Waters very own, Okumo, Meruin!" he would shout out, extending his arms out.
Tsukiko takes a deep breath, holds it for a moment, then exhales. She does so again before looking up to Hiroshi. She blocks out the sound of the crowd before walking out to the ring, standing on her side of the proctor. Her mentor. The man who was more like a father than any she had in her life. he would be her judge. She knew he would judge fairly, though.. she just hoped he did not show too much compassion towards her. She also hoped her opponent did not notice the little trail of glass dust she leaves in her wake as she entered. She looks Meruin's way when he entered. Her surprise at his youth is visible. She blinks in surprise… thinking it a joke.. but it can't be. This child already won a match. She could not afford to think it a joke. She fights with herself to regain her stoic face and hide her emotions.
After hearing his name announced, Meruin stood wordlessly, the small child silently padding from the waiting rooms, passing through it's door to meet the glare of sunlight and the roar of the crowd that was such an assault to his tender senses. He seemed to move through a world where there was only himself, his face placid, gaze detached, walking to his designated area. Smooth gaited and soft stepped, he stopped, eyes on Tsukiko, taking her in.
His misted eyes lock onto her and refuse to budge. He gives a respectful nod for Hiroshi, though he never looked away from the girl. A bow is sent towards her, and he speaks.
"I apologize."
Hiroshi would peer at the young boy, then, at tsukiko as well. Chuckling lightly, Hiroshi would smile at both contestants, "I know this goes without saying but, any personal feelings towards another village best be left outside of the ring. Give it all you got, but consider the fact you are in a tournament not a war. But, I would guess this goes without saying." he would say turning to the kunoichi, nodding lightly. Turning his back on the contestands Hiroshi would slowly step from the area between hands slipping into his pockets as he turns around to face the contestants once more. "Good luck to both of you. Give these people a show they deserve!" he would shout out, giving them both a thumbs up before fading away, or more so, dashing back. Appearing several meters from the two. "Okumo, Meruin and Abe, Tsukiko! FIGHT!" he would shout out, raising his right hand high, with the snap of a finger, the signal for the match to begin has been given.
As the boy would bow to her, Tsukiko returns the polite gesture as well. When Hiroshi calls the start of the match, Tsukiko immidiately backflips from the center of the ring, seeking to put distance between herself and her opponent. She lands in a low crouch to make herself a smaller target. She knows nothing of this opponent. It was said of her before that she had no combat instincts.. but had incredible combat intelligence. She focuses herself, readying herself for the combat to come, watching Meruin's reactions.. watching.. waiting.. learning.
Meruin stood where he was, imbued with an inhuman stillness, simply watching. His long hair writhed, slowly, the motion rolling throughout the whole of it, as though it were a cat newly awakened.
Tsukiko watches unsurely as the boy remains still. Perhaps he, too, was waiting for the other to make the first move. She draws a pair of her bangled senbon and focuses her wind chakra through her hands, wrapping the weapons in sharp cutting wind> She throws the pair towards Meruin and follows them by throwing the remaining wind chakra to the ground. The small windstorm flies his direction, collecting the glass dust and debris she left when she entered.
Meruin leaps to the side, the first senbon with it's searing winds just missing him even as the second one rebounds off of the skin on his side, and he knew it would have cut if he hadn't been within the seals of the place. He jerked himself to the side, feet sliding, but found the following winds, filled with cuttind debris to slam into him, abrasive.
He raised a hand to protect his eyes until the gale passed and when it did, the silken sleeve on his arm pulled away, revealing shuriken. A strand of the silk took the weapons flinging them at Tsukiko even as he flashed through a series of handseals.
With the same abruptness that Meruin went through the seals, a thin circle of wind spun around the girl, as though someone had stirred a pot. It moved so swiftly as to have cutting power and the circle closed on the girl.
Tsukiko concentrates her chakra into small puffs of wind from each palm, pushing the thrown projectiles from meruin off target, each one missing narrowly to each side of her. She doesn't notice the swift wind attack that followed and is enveloped in the buffeting, sharp winds, only the seals on the battlefield keeping it from cutting her. She escapes the winds and counterattacks with a new volley, throwing again a chakra charged mirror bangled senbon. In its wake this time is a small black ball, charged with chakra and a second senbon. This one's bangle is paper, though…
Hiroshi would remain on the side lines, as things got off to windy and explosive start. The teen hyuugas pale opals would be locked on the heated battle. Having seen what Meruin is capable of Hiroshi can only watch with anticipation, did Tsukikos training pay off? Well somewhere a certain Samurai would agree, Tsukiko is more than a little girl, especially when it comes to tactics and strategy. "This should make an interestng match." he would say to himself, chuckling lightly as Meruins is able to dodge Tsukikos first onslaught and glitter bombs.
Meruin dashes towards Tsukiko with a sudden burst of speed as the girl began attacking him again. The wind propelled senbon is left to move far past him, the same being said with the small black ball that exploded in a sparkly cloud of glitter and debris. As the paper bangle flew closer, his eyes narrowed just a little.
He took in a breath and leaped upwards, letting the air leave his body, removing the tension from his body. As me mvoed through the air, he rotated steadily foward so that by the time the explosion hit, he was nearly upside down. The blast rose and he cupped his body, catching the kinetic energy and letting it toss his small body at Tsukiko.
Silk bled from his pores and formed into long ropes that lashed out at the girl as the explosion made him finish the front flip. He landed just in front of her, black talons swiping at her along the waist.
Tsukiko forms her seals, but doesn't move fast enough to avoid the rapid onslaught from her opponent. She winces, imagining what the gutting blow from the boys flaws would be really like had the seals not been here. Though She took the damage, she does complete her jutsu, leaving a tall mirror in her place. From her new position, Tsukiko launches a swift, small windstorm that crawls along the battlefield's floor. She takes a swift jump back, hoping to get a quick breather, but she knows her opponent is fast. She can't let her guard down.
Meruin resumed his dogged pursuit of Tsukiko, darting to the side to avoid another debris filled gale thrown his way. He switched directions on a dime, throwing himself into a roll and the air beneath him grew unsettled, throwing itself skywards and pulling on his hair. The eight year old seemed unfased by the near miss and… the mirror left behind him fell and shattered. The tag on it's back exploded, throwing heat and flame and noise in all direction.
Meruin's steps turned into slides as wind chakra covered the soles of his feet, destroying friction, and he skated on the earth, speeding away from the explosion and towards it's cause.
Spider burst from him in a dark wave, launching themselves at Tsukiko, and a shuriken parted the mass, streaking to strike before they did. But they did, and Meruin was only a second after them, talons becoming slick with poison as his hands lashed out in a flurry of potential slices.
Tsukiko draws a mirror from her scroll to defend herself, but she is too slow to channel the chakra through it to block the attack, the shuriken shattering the mirror and striking her. She is surprised by the spiders from the little boy and, with a wave of her hand, blows them away with a swift breeze. The claw attack seems to strike home as the girl holds her midsection.. but then the image shimmers and the mirror falls, cut in half by the boy's claws and shatters on the ground… A mirror behind a mirror… but where was Tsukiko.
There. Accross the ring. The girl focuses her chakra through her body and she begins glow slightly, shining like soft moonlight. She channels her chakra into her hands and begins building the wind energy there before loosing it. This storm picks up more than just dust. Whole panes of broken mirror glass, discarded senbons and shuriken.. all get sucked into the vortex as she slings it accross the field.. But faster than the storm itself, she propels a small bullet of wind forward and through it towards Meruin.
Meruin's hand made a single seal and he put on a burst of speed, the air seeming to part for him as it got him out of the way of the speeding bullet of wind, but behind it… behind it lay destruction. A vortex of glass and and grit and destruction, all moving at gale force speed.
And the eight year old simply vanished, leaving it to rend the earth he stood on in an elemental rage. He reapped in front of Tsukiko, the storm's noise left in the background. He attacked her without preamble, talons lashing in an oddly rhtymic series of strikes all about her body.
Tsukiko braces for the attacks from Meruin, concentrating the wind chakra into her hands and parrying the strikes from the boy. She manages to bat away the first two, but taijutsu was not her forte, the final attack raking her arm. She retreats with a backwards jump and draws two large hand mirrors from her scroll. She takes a high jump into the air and shines the mirros back to the ground. She hoped the boy would be watching her above.. meanwhile her jutsu locked on two large chunks of earth. She swings the two mirrors and the rocks mimmic the motion, meeting where meruin stood unless he was able to move first.
Meruin did look skywards as Tsukiko leapt there, eyes still calm, still placid, the boy always silent. He reacted a little late to the sound of earth being ripped from the ground, but he did clear the stones when he jumped over them, if only barely. He landed on them and pushed off, throwing them back to the ground and himself skywards towards tsukiko. The silk over his chest burst open, throwing shuriken towards her as his hands flashed through handseals and the air around Tsukiko spun around her once more, the sharp edge closing in on her.
Tsukiko swipes the air with the fan-like hand mirrors, using the wind to knock aside the weapon from the boy. The wind struck her before she even landed, but the image shimmers and disipates away.. only a clone. Elsewhere in the ring the real Tsukiko crouches, trying to catch her breath. She looks at the boy. She can't even tell if he's tired or not. She shakes her head. it doesn't matter.. What matters is collecting her own thoughts.. gathering her own energies. She takes a few more deep, calming breaths, perparing herself for the rest of the battle.
Meruin lands, Tsukiko have vanished from his sight. He remained placid in both visage and demeanor. He stood where he was for a few moments before suddenly looking directly at the girl. He nodded just the slightest bit and the earth opened behind her, revealing a four foot deep pit of brown spiders. They shot out webbing, weeking to take her and drag her down, where they could all bite and inject their venom.
Tsukiko eeks and falls into the spider pit, only to shatter into a pile of broken mirror glass. Again the real Tsukiko lies elsewhere in the field. She gathers her wind chakra and sends the small storm skipping accross the ground. In the storm's wake is an extra little burst of air, meant to knock Meruin off balance. She dashes forward in the wind's wake and holds a mirror in front of her, pointed at meruin, wherever he lands, but it is not Meruin that is reflected in the mirror.. its not even the battle arena. The mirror's reflection is that of a large, heavily armored man with a giant sword standing in a clearing in a heavily forested area. The armored juggernaught reflection dashes towards the mirror and bursts through, his giant sword thundering down down in a slash that would cleave the very earth aimed directly at meruin.
Meruin stopped his charge towards Tsukiko in the face of the storm and, instead, threw himself backwards, mitigating some of the damage the whipping winds caused. But, he's caught completely off balance as Tsukiko's secondary burst of air arrives and throws his feet out from under him.
Before he could even fall to his back, the girl was upon him, summoning an ironclad giant from her mirror. The eight year old could do nothing but watch as the man's blade struck, landing from his shoulder all the way down his hip, opening a small gash, damage mitigated due to the seals. Blood blossomed all along the line, coloring his pale skin and platinum clothing. The blade went past, rending the earth by his legs, and when the boy's back touched the ground… he vanished, reappearing behind Tsukiko and away from the giant's reach. Ignoring the blood on his body, his foot was already coming around in a kick to the girl's temple, heel leading the way.
Tsukiko is visible tired, but not willing to give up jsut yet. She parries away the boys sudden dash attack.. her days of training against hand to hand opponents showing.. making her weakness a strength.. making her able to handle herself in these close quarters. She opens the distance up between the two, throwing two kunai. One charged with wind chakra, making it razor sharp.. the other trailing a paper tag behind it… using the tags to conserve her own strength again.
A change could be seen in Meruin as he started an almost reckless charge towards Tsukiko, movements swift. His hands came together in a seal and that speed abruptly increased, allowing him to simply run around the speeding kunai and the explosion caused by the second one, the wind fleeing from him.
Spider silk spread over the whole of his body and sprouted from his back, forming four spider legs. An extra pair of eyes opened, fixing on Tsukiko and he leapt at the girl. He leapt and bestowed upon her a flurry of strikes, slashes falling down as rain — so many, spider silk flashing from his arms with the speed of his movements.
Tsukiko, exhausted and wounded, is too slow from the damage she'd taken to defend herself from the first horrific slash. She stumbles backwards, finally able to make her seals and perform the replacement technique to defend from the second. She reappears nearby, stumbling to her knees, her hand landing on a piece of her own mirror glass. She grips it, cutting her hand> She puts the last of her strength into it and launches it as a weapon at Meruin. After the explosion, though, it is Tsuikiko that is down. She can't gather her stength to get up again.
Meruin comes out of the explosion, running towards Tsukiko. having avoided the wind-imbued shard. But the boy stops, seeing that the girl is down. He looks towards the proctor and lowers himself to the ground, losing the extra eyes, the spider silk sliding back through his pores.
Hiroshi would peer at the fight, he has been for some time now, not getting involved, not allowing his personal feeling to get the best of him, but enough was enough. The teen hyuuga would sigh lightly, as he takes a step forward from the shadows, a smile upon his face it would same. "You done well Tsukiko." he would have said, though no one would have really heard him, especially with the distance and the roaring crowd at its feet. "As Proctor of this match, I am calling an end to it, and declaring a victor!" he would shout flickering from sight as he appears a single foot infront of Tsukiko. "Abe Tsukiko is unable to battle because of wounds and fatigued, but todays victory goes to okumo Meruin!" he would shout, his pale eyes locking upon the boy. "Congratulations, please return to your stable." he would say to meruin, before turning to face Tsukiko, kneeling down to her, a pat upon her head, "I am proud of you, now rest." he would say.
