Starring:
Meruin, Kureno
Date: November 17, 2010
Summary:
An exhibition match at the First World Ninja Tourney between Meruin, a genin from Kirigakure, and Kureno, a chuunin from Sunagakure.
Poster's note: Profanity filtered in obvious places.
"First World Ninja Tournament - Crystals and Crawlies: Meruin vs. Kureno"
Kusagakure Arena #1
It's mid-day and the arena today is a ruined village. The houses seem as if they've been burned nearly to the ground, open roofs, barely enough for cover.
A exhibition match is announced and from one side of the arena stalks in a black haired boy, barely fifteen or so years old. He wears the headband of Sunagakure and seems quite stoic.
As he enters he waves to the crowd, followed by cheers and boos alike after what he did to one of the tournament favorites.
Entering from the opposite side of the arena was Meruin, appearing to be roughly half the age of the other person. He ignored the sounds of the crowd, unable to say if they were cheering, booing, or snoring, if he'd have been asked.
Instead, his attention remained firmly on the air in front of him, it would seem, as he walked through the ruined village that was this battle's arena.
Glancing at the boy half his age Kureno's lips pressed together in a thin line. He wanted a fight, not an annihilation. But nevertheless, he also knows that there are some very talented young people. So, he pays him due respect as a shinobi, not as a kid. "Greetings. I will be your opponent." He says, "Seishukuni Kureno of Sunagakure."
Meruin came to a stop, eyes barely noticed to swivel as they looked towards Kureno, the mist in them slowly swirling, tinged with blue and green. His hair undulates behind him and darkness begins to seep from his pant legs, spiders coating the ground at his feet.
"Okumo Meruin."
Kureno smirks as he places his hands together, focusing his chakra in a burst of power. "Well, Okumo Meruin, I am not quite thrilled about this fight, but let us see what you're capable of, shall we?"
Kureno than drops in a low stance, hands raised defensively.
Meruin stood where he was for a few moments, the stillness of him abruptly blatant, as though stone had took his form. He said nothing when the spiders about his feet started spreading away from him, as though abondoning their dead. He said nothing when Kureno spoke, or when he moved into his lowered stance.
And he said nothing when he exploded. Spider silk, copious and lined with painful acids, shot out from him in all directions, veiling his form. The encroaching substance flew far and flung wide, consuming much of the ruinous collection of buildings that were to be their fighting ground.
From it, Meruin could soon be found climbing, on top. When he emerged, it would be with a new form, more spider silk covering the whole of his eight year old body, six eyes peering examining the changes he'd wrought. Extending from his back were four spider legs, far longer than he was tall, and the shiny limbs lifted his humanoid body from the silk beneath.
Kureno stood still himself, hardly moving an inch when the buildings crumble around him, and the spiders begin crawling across the battlefield, much like a icon of a western movie.
Though, when Meruin seems to change is when Kureno lifts an eyebrow in surprise. "Going all out so soon?" Kureno asks, "So be it."
And when the webbing is shot at him, Kureno performs a few handseals and the dirt raises and crystallizes in a heartbeat to meet the attack, protecting Kureno from the terrible onslaught.
But Kureno continues performing handseals and before long crystal petals begin to surround the two fighters, and for some reason, Kureno seems way more confident than he was before. And even than he was pretty confident.
Wasting no time, nor movement, Kureno performs several handseals and disrupts the very earth as he sends several earth spires after Meruin.
"Dance dance."
The first spire caught Meruin's reflexes unprepared, rising up and striking his leg, doing what would have been decent damage if he'd not has been in the sealed arena. Swiftly, though, the spider legs carry him across the terrain towards Kureno, the other earth spires simply rising too slowly, left far behind by the spider.
His hand lashes out and the silk around Kureno shifts, attempting to close in on him, and entrap him. Whatever the result, Meruin suddenly appears by the chuunin, giving no reprieve. Blighted claws lash out, spider legs shifting to let the body near, and the silk along his arms extends, their touch corrosive to the body.
As the silk springs up on Kureno, he quickly performs some handseals and a flat spike of crystal shoots out from the ground. Kureno sticks to it, extending chakra from his feet as it takes him out of attack range with it's incredible momentum.
Kureno than performs more handseals and kicks the crystal, sending it flying towards Meruin. Though, it falls short of him, but where the shard landed, two crystal spikes erupt from the ground, threatening to skewer Meruin just as the Spires tried to do.
Meruin lifts himself on his spider legs again as Kureno slides out of his grasp utilizing an outcropping of crystal. He immediately picks up chase again, eyes looking towards the shard that falls short of him for only a moment before his gaze lifts back to Kureno.
As the spires stem from nothing, jagged edges reaching, Meruin vanishes and reappears in front of Kureno, a torrent of wood flying skywards from a further demolished building. A spider leg rises and falls, aimed to strike at the seishukuni's shoulder. It lashes out once more, a swift-acting neurotoxin dripping from it's serrated edges.
As Meruin appears in front of him, Kureno quickly leans back as a crystal spire shoots out from the ground, rotating in such a way that Kureno is upside down as it tries to take him to safety. However, the attack strikes the crystals, glances off and manages to strike Kureno in the arm, he carelessly threw out in his imbalance. Thankfully, he is using a variant of the Tree-Walking technique to stand on the crystal, just as it spirals once again to evade the poisonous attack.
Jumping off the crystal, Kureno lands on a broken wall, performing handseals as quickly as possible as he directs part of the crystal petals floating around him to rush towards Meruin.
They quickly form a spike stabbing towards the ground with some amazing speed, yet, predictable. But all this is just a feint for the crystals to try and envelop Meruin in a sort of cocoon, and if succesfull, pierce into his skin and fuse on a dermal level, to trap him in a painful prison.
Meruin falls back, just a moment, avoiding the spire of crystal by a small margin. When the crystal grows — it does so with a swiftness, enveloping the eight year old's form…
Abruptly, the Okumo leaps from the silk underneath Kureno, an extra pair of arms growing from the already lunging boy's torso. The four limbs strike in a blur of multiple cutting blows, the webbing on his arm acting as a lash.
Leaping off the ground, Kureno lands on his technique, that may by now be very foreseeable after him having it used too many times; So when the next attack comes, Kureno changes his tactic and turns the crystal spike into a shield which pushes Kureno back.
However, Kureno continues smirking as he leaps back and points towards Meruin.. or behind him.
"Watch out, they're still following."
Meruin spared no time looking over his shoulder, simply giving chase to Kureno and outpacing the encroaching crystal, the attack no danger to him. Abruptly, the silk on his body burst open and shuriken whirred through the air towards Kureno. Two, arching from each side.
He raised a hand and lifted it upwards. A strand of silk on his arm pulled upwards from the cushioned ground and the webbing under Kureno rose in an attempt to envelop him.
Kureno crossed his arms, proudfully, perhaps even enjoying the chase. Toying with this kid who was no danger to him.
Suffice it to say, he has a 'wtf' moment when the petals surrounding the fighters simply crash to the ground.
The shurikens are the next worst thing to happen, he performs a few handseals and that's when he notices it, he just doesn't have enough chakra to do much of anything. The first shuriken slams into his shoulder as Kureno tries to dodge it, the other one strikes into his side just as the webbing binds him in place.
He growls, "Flunk."
At Kureno's curse and capture, the eight year old Okumo puts on sudden speed, as though he were going in for the kill. Abruptly, the boy was airborn, slowly spinning. His spider legs fanned out, black chitin gleaming in the watery sunlight. His speed picked up, and momentum became his. Soon the whole of his form was a blur, the wind swirling about him.
Then, as it had once before, silk exploded from the boy's form flying in all directions as though hungry to consume, it's corrosive strands thickly packed and yearning.
That wasn't so bad.. my nosebone. As the chitinous attack slams into Kureno he emits a piercing scream , the power of the attack sending him backwards and tearing his binds.
He rolls on the ground, incredulous that he got 'defeated' by a what he thought was the underdog. Yet it was Kureno's own stupidity that made himself the underdog in this fight. Not even a child could screw up the way he did. Running out of chakra in the middle of a fight. Pathetic.
But no, he wasn't gonna let /that guy/ walk away as the victor. No matter how much it hurt Kureno to stand and strain when his body wanted to stop.
His words however are way more friendly than his thoughts. "Heh. Good.. one. This kind of.. power is a bit.. taxing. I won't make the same.. mistake again."
He presses his hands together for a final attack against this Okumo Meruin and this time, he ain't taking no prisoners.
Meruin landed lightly, like a leaf to a lake, the spider silk standing firm underneath him. He examines Kureno as the chuunin once more finds his feet and speaks. "Pride," he said, paying respect to the man who stood up once more, and ignoring the warning given to him.
He inclined his head and again set himself on the path towards the crystal bearing chuunin, the wind fleeing his touch. The silk parts under his feet, revealing a trap door in the earth below, four feet deep and filled with spiders. They shoot webbing out, seeking to drag him in with them.
His His thin, glistening arms lash out in the man's direction, thick ropes of webbing following after him. The spider silk is meant to esnare and entrap the man. Following after is the shiny sheen of a caustic poison, and a quick jerk of the arms would have those ropes cutting into him as they pulled away, or lashing after him if they'd missed, initially.
As the attacks come at him, Kureno at first slides away from the first one that reaches him, than turns the spike into a barrier against which the binds slam and fail to pierce through, and than climbing on the barrier, he seems to slide through it, as if it were a slide at a kindergarten.
Performing several handseals again, he this time refuses to play games.
The ring of petals comes to life again as Kureno exclaims.
"Crystal Style: Impenetrable Cloud Formation!"
This time however he immediatly follows up with more handseals as the petals crystallize into a spiralling prison of spikes regardless if Meruin is in it or not.
"Never underestimate a Seishukuni!"
Immediatly continuing his attack, Kureno performs a slightly longer than usual set of handseals as Meruin evades the prison. Chakra now seeps from Kureno's form, crystal petals rise from the formation of crystals in a threatening manner, and before long, Kureno's words echo.
"Crystal Style: Breaking The Clouds!" He even follows up with a ominous crushing hand gesture.
The crystal spikes turn inward and seem to slice through the prison itself, before it explodes, sending crystalline shrapnel in all directions, one even passes over Kureno's shoulder. Others slam into the barrier enveloping the arena, and some even fly towards Meruin. And these aren't just simple pin sized shards. No, these are sharp shards the size of small boulders. Enough to hurt if it connects.
Thankfully, Meruin wasn't in the crystal prison itself, so that may be a blessing in itself.
Meruin whipped around as he sensed as change in the crystal prison behind him, spider legs still carrying him onwards towards Kureno. The structure exploded with a deafening noise, throwing rending shrapnel, tearing the silk under and about it to impotence, and further approaching Meruin.
The eight year old nodded — would have, if he'd had the time. He vanished… and he reappeared much nearer Kureno, rushing towards him. His body now held numerous puncture wounds, visible through the sheen that was his fur, and through one of his hind spider legs was a long sliver of jagged crystal.
Again, he gave silent thanks for the force mitigating seals as he opened his mouth, speaking through his fangs. "Respect," rang the child's voice, high and pure.
The arachnid legs dipped as the moved, letting his body touch the silk that lay underneath and they slowed to a stop. The Okumo anchored himself to the silk and sank within, chitin covered appendages still on the surface. The turned and set themselves, digging into the ground and twisting. A single jerk… a second… and momentum was found, a whirlpool of silk accompanying. The whirlpoll quickly grew, dragging along the silk further out from the center that was Meruin. Soon the whole of the copious deluge of platinum silk he'd thrown about the place, including that which Kureno stood upon, was caught up in the whorlpool, and if he didn't evade, he'd be pulled down into it. The rotational speed grew in velocity and the wreckage of the buildings in the arena shot out, slamming into the walls with enough force to damage it, with Kureno meant to do the same.
Kureno felt sluggish, that last move he performed, he never used it in actual combat. It left such a strain on him that Kureno's knees buckled under his own weight. And when Meruin appears in front of him, stab wounds or not, Kureno's morale sinks to all time lows.
His falling momentum carries him to the ground fairly quickly, he plants his arms on the ground and raises a half-crystal half-earth barrier that gets pierced through and slams Kureno in the ribs, sending him sprawling across the ground.
Now staring towards the ceiling, Kureno could actually smile. Did he say 'respect'? Yeah, that's the feeling Kureno forgot this morning. No matter how hard he tried to remember it, he just couldn't.
"Respect indeed… Meruin." And then his eyes closed, lapsing out of consciousness as the barrier lowers.
"Meruin is the victor." Announces the mechanical voice over the speakers as Medics rush into the arena to give Kureno the once over.
Meruin could be seen walking from the huge circle of silk, the wall of it parting for him. Hissing and steaming, the webbing began to dissolve in it's own acids, and he stepped free of it's clinging embrace and departed from the ring, simply a pale eight year old child.
