Starring:
Date: August 17, 2014
Summary:
Yuriko teaches Naoya and Hayase the fine art of tree walking through a game with a reward of cookies, then Naoya tests his metal against Yuriko, with dire consequences.
"The Fate of Cookies at Stake"
Dammed Arena - Floor [Kirigakure]
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At the foot of the great march of bones that dams this tall canyon of blue-gray granite, under the shadows of the stands: the Kirigakure arena. Rivulets of water still escape the base of the dam and dampen the gravely bed of the dry river. The length of the canyon is limited by a raised platform at the south end featuring the referee's post and a large display board announcing the details of the match.
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A typical Tuesday afternoon in the Land of Water lingers a thick, low fog that seems to cling near to the ground. Wisps of smoke drifting and swirling in the wake of steps. Yuriko had (somehow) pushed Noaya and Hayase into coming with her to the Dammed Arena, the birthplace of many a Genin and forebodingly still amongst the subtly drifting mist. Entering, Yuriko lifts a pale brow as she gives the arena a quick scan. "Hm." Probably not a good day to venture into the Bloody Marshes.
Grumbling as Yuriko continuously prods him in the back each time he slows down. Naoya closes his eyes and tilts his head upwards, "Fine fine.. I already told you I was working on it. What's with this sudden push to have me walking on walls?" By the time they made it to the arena, his voice was softer, but loud enough for the trio to hear him clearly. "Hmm? You aren't planning for us to try and run up and poke you while you stand on the wall.. are you?"
Hayase agreed to the challenge—once she heard that Naoya was coming too. She wonders if the two of them can overcome Yuriko. At least they could have a strategy beyond one sidedly getting beaten up. Hayase has no doubts about the strength of the daughter of a Seven Swordsman. Which leaves her thinking about her father. That was some weird training she underwent. And she could test out her super move that she (might've) mastered during training! She shows up right on time, and takes them in at a glance. "Hello Yuriko-chan, Naoya-kun." She nudges Naoya in the ribs. "You should smile more."
Glancing over her shoulder at Naoya, complaining, a slight smirk touches the corner of her lips before turning around, facing them fully. "Well we can't go into the Blood Marshes together unless we have the basics down, right? So I'm going to teach them to you. First," she holds up an index finger to emphasize. "Tree walking. Or walking on walls or whatever. Since Naoya-kun has been practicing, he understands how to do it. What about you Hayase-san?"
What? Nooooooooooooo! Hayase looks horrified. And here she thought that they were going to have a spar. It would've been rather interesting. She stares up at the wall as if it were about to drop down on her. Tree walking is just too pointless. It's so…so boring! Knowing the nature of the training now, Hayase turns and flees. "I'll see you later. In a minute!" she says, although her minute may be their hours. Apparently she hasn't yet learned how to tree walk.
Naoya turns to Hayase after making a mild face and exhales slowly. Sure enough, a wide tooth grin appears on his face but before long, a inch long spider crawls from within his mouth, likely from his cheek or throat, and crawls around until it finds a burrow within the bottom of the young teen's jaw and disappears. It takes a moment for Naoya's face to relax, but a smirk stays on his lips when he asks, "Better?"
Turning his attention back towards Yuriko, the young teen shrugs his shoulders lightly. Naoya makes his way over to one of the canyon walls that the stands were carved from and knocks against it lightly. "I can keep things stable if I focus for a few meters, can't keep it up for very long though."
Hayase is nodding to Naoya, as he grins. Although she winces at the spider going up and down his face. Did it just go into his mouth? Did he eat it? She listens to Naoya speak, nodding some more as if in agreement. Wait…huh…?
What? Nooooooooooooo! Hayase looks horrified. And here she thought that they were going to have a spar. It would've been rather interesting. She stares up at the wall as if it were about to drop down on her. Tree walking is just too pointless. It's so…so boring! Knowing the nature of the training now, Hayase turns and flees. "I'll see you later. In a minute!" she says, although her minute may be their hours. Apparently she hasn't yet learned how to tree walk.
Yuriko's keen eyes catch Hayase about to flee, and the smaller girl suddenly disappears in a blur of speed to cut her off. "Hey, come on. The game won't be much fun with just two people. And you don't even know what we're going to play yet!" Her bottom lip pouts, frowning with clear disappointment. "At least listen to the rules first? And there's a reward too." The frown is replaced with an instant smile.
"This—" Yuriko holds up the little drawstring bag dangling on her small wrist, which had been hidden previously under the sleeve of her yukata. "has a whole bunch of cookies. And you guys can have as many as you want. But!" she grins. "It's going to be part of the game. We're gonna play Tag, shinobi-style." The smile becomes a slight smirk. "The game will be like regular tag, but all the walls and everywhere you can run is open. Just stay in the arena. Only when you tag someone else do you get a cookie. The more you tag people, the more cookies you get!" The small Kaguya girl beams brightly.
The spider that crawled upon Naoya was content and healthy where it found a burrow even though it was notably smaller than some of Naoya's prominent broom members. The teen looks away from the wall when Hayase speaks loudly, just in time to watch her trying to run away. Blinking a few times he mutters, "It's just training, why is she.." Naoya falls quiet again when Yuriko almost simply appears in front of Hayase, blocking her path. Turning his head to one side, he turns an ear to the pair, and closes his eyes, trying to listen more carefully. "Eh? Tag?" was asked in utter confusion. "Why won't she make up her mind?"
Hayase skids to a halt when Yuriko blocks her path. And she'd been running as fast as she could. She squints at the girl, as she smiles and explains the rules of the game. Although her expression goes from stubborn to willing when she sees those cookies. She gives a disarming smiles and says, "We'll get her, Naoya-kun." Thumbs up. "So Yuriko-chan you're saying—tag!" And she'd lunge at Yuriko before the game even begins. Supposedly. She'd have a better chance, since they're fairly close already, but it's not Yuriko she's aiming to touch. It's to seize that bag of cookies in its entirety!
Hayase lunges to snatch the bag from Yuriko's wrist, which she does, but the smaller girl frowns and snatches it back. "You have to know how to run up the walls first before we start. Otherwise you can't catch me." Yuriko smiles.
Turning, she moves to the curved wall that makes up the dam itself, spinning on the heel of her foot, she faces her friends. The smile disappears as she suddenly becomes serious and a hand touches her stomach. "Form the chakra in your belly first, then… push it down through your legs to your feet. Concentrate it evenly there, along the flats of your feet. If you do too much, you'll break the surface you're trying to walk on, but too little and you'll just fall off."
To demonstrate this, Yuriko takes several calm steps up along the curved wall, then coming to a pause, standing horizontally. The smile instantly reappears, bright and beaming. "A cookie will be thrown at a person that tags someone else. And that can be allot of cookies. And!" She suddenly points at Naoya. "Tag and training. They are the same thing."
Naoya simply shakes his head slowly while with his eyes still closed but turns away. The young teen rotates his wrists slowly as his breathing becomes slower but also deeper. Placing a hand onto the canyon wall, the teen presses his hand against it heavily before dragging downwards. It would take a few inches but the teen's grip would catch itself long the surface enough for Naoya to propel himself higher up along the wall before he would raise a knee and try to find a grip point for the ball of his opposing foot to grip and kick off higher. To some it might appear that he was climbing the wall, though to those who knew the technique could easily see he was was only managing to form weak bonds to cause friction as when he slowed down, he soon began to slide backwards.
The sneak attack works, and for one blissful moment Hayase the cookies. Then that moment is literally snagged away, and she's left empty handed. "Hey!" she says angrily. She watches as Yuriko and Naoya go along the wall. She squints at Naoya's wall walking. "Hey…that's cheating!" she says. She throws two kunai at him with full force. Or rather, harmlessly in front of him. They embed in the wall, and then Hayase runs to jump up on the protrusions she's made. Not wall walking, but just jumping from one kunai to the next with a final leap to tag Naoya, or more accurately smash into him. That counts, right?
Standing on the wall several yards up, Yuriko calmly lifts a pale brow as she watches Naoya first try to actually run up the side of the wall, though either he didn't use enough chakra or wasn't trying to use chakra at all. And Hayase… she's using different means to go up the wall. Yuriko frowns at this. "I'm only giving you a cookie if you use tree walking, k? You better be careful Naoya-kun! She might tag you down there!"
Naoya looks towards his side while he was making his way towards a vantage spot when a pair of kunai sink into the wall beside him suddenly. Opening his eyes a bit wider he looks to which of them tossed them and eyes Hayase sprinting towards him though he manages to kick from the wall, managing just barely to dodge the younger girl's grasping hands. "Hey now, just how's that fair?!" Landing with a crouch, Naoya doesn't linger and tries to run close to the wall, extending a hand outwards while focusing, attempting to secure a second handhold soon.
Yuriko is walking on the walls, but Naoya is much nearer the ground. Still potential prey. Hayase says, "If I tag someone five times in a row, does that mean five cookies?" It seems she has a single track mind. She knows she's being bribed with food—and really, she doesn't mind. If she's compelled to train, she may as well do it with food on top. Especially if she can't outrun Yuriko from the arena. So instead she's aiming to tag Naoya while he's still on the ground, as she dashes forward.
Naoya grumbles as rather than catching along the wall, the surface under his hand explodes with a moderate puff, repelling his hand away. "Dang it. Just one more.." Looking over his shoulder, he watches Hayase not only keep up with his pace this time but bop him on the shoulder to his dismay. "Just a stupid cookie.. hmm." Rather than simple accept the tag, Naoya pivots and tries to bop Hayase back with a lurching move.
It became a complete counter tagfest, as Hayase is tagged a moment after she tags Naoya. She's not going to let it end at that! She doesn't just aim to tag Naoya. She ducks down, and aims to sweep his legs from under him. Tag! If she was successful she'd already been running at all speed, to leap on the wall and attempt a long run up as far as she could go.
Yuriko watches all of this and… frowns. They keep tagging one another, evading some and others, but at least they're still trying to get up the wall after the small Kaguya. At least there's that much. "Maybe I should just give the cookies to whoever reaches me first…" she ponders out loud. If that doesn't light a fire under their buns, she isn't sure what would.
A grin widens on the young teen's lips as he manages to bop Hayase quickly before she weaves away. Naoya, almost out of instant hops into the air as soon as the younger girl drops in a crouch, hopping upwards and against the wall before having his legs swept from under himself. His hold on the wall was fleeting, soon returning him to the ground. Curling his lips upwards, the young teen begins to chitter lightly, a trio of spiders slip from his arm and quickly make their way out and along to the wall and crawling along it quickly but each taking a separate path.
Hayase sighs in exasperation as they simply tag each other back and forth. She squints up at Yuriko. "We've tagged each other twenty times at least!" she says. "Rain down the cookies!" But Yuriko doesn't seem to be so obliging. So with one great leap Hayase clears the ground, and lands far up on the wall /almost/ reaching Yuriko. She'd have to tree walk only part of the distance, as she tries to stick on long enough to tag the little Kaguya…only to slip and fall on her butt. Oww.
The younger girl frowns some at Hayase. "You're missing the point. I'm not going to give you cookies when you haven't done anything." Yuriko murmurs. She catches sight of the spiders out of the corner of her eye, taking note of them, and that Naoya was up to something sneaky, but her attention turns back to her friends. "Take a moment to stop and concentrate, okay? Close your eyes and feel your chakra. Try to push it to your feet and spread it evenly throughout the bottom. When you feel it constant along your foot, try again. You can do it."
Watching Hayase continue to charge off after Yuriko, the teen closes his eyes and brings his hands together, forming the seal of the ram, leveling it to be over the center of his chest. Drawing one of his hands away he presses his hand flush with the wall and manages to keep a more firm seal against the wall before raising his feet against the wall as well. This only for a few steps before starting to slip downwards along the wall, closer to the ground rather than a higher vantage point.
Slow down and concentrate? Hayase glares at the wall and runs up it as if she means to stamp her footprints in. She gets about five steps before she actually /has/ made a footprint-shaped indent right in the hardened wall. She falls down. But next time she takes more time. Draws in her breath, concentrates through a hand seal, and then runs up! Only to slide down. And then up! And finally she's high enough to grab Yuriko and make a snatch for those delicious cookies.
It takes time, and allot of trial and error, but when Hayase begins to make her way up the wall, staggering just once. Actually making it as high as where Yuriko's standing though, she exhales a small sight and holds out the bag, allowing the older girl to snatch away the small bag of cookies. "Good job, Hayase-san." So much for tag. "Maybe we should play more next time." The chakra at her feet lessens, the stickiness diminishing and making her slide along the curve of the wall. Yuriko surfs for a minute before reaching the ground floor, making the girl giggle as she runs to a stop.
Naoya watches as Yuriko seems to grow bored with the little game already and moves a hand into a thigh pouch, quickly producing a weapon, a shuriken. Curling his arm up and around to his neck, he pauses before hurling the disk of blades out with an arched spin, trying to cause it to bury into the ground close to her feet. "Hayase-san. Ya know that Yuriko has sweeter treats in her kimono, right?" was called out loudly, a smirk growing on his lips. "Lets see who can tie her up and claim the treats."
"Whoo! I did it!" Hayase crows, as she grabs the bag. Whether her exclamation is for tree walking or cookies is lost as she slips and falls. But she twists to land easily on her feet, knees bent. She's already gobbling up the cookies. "Maythe lader," she says to Naoya, her cheeks bulging like a squirrel. And then she darts from the stadium, clutching the cookies to her heart. She waves to them both. "Thee ya Nya-kun anth Yurko-than!" Then she's off.
Yuriko doesn't flinch when the shuriken hits the arena floor near her feet, causing her pale brow to quirk before she glances at the retreating Hayase. Obviously the cookies were really important to her. "Well so much for your 'sweeter cookies'." she smirks as she glances back at Naoya. "'Tie me up'?"
Naoya shrugs his shoulders lightly and bring his hands together briefly before extending them again. Between his hands was a thin sleet of silken cloth which he rolls into a cord. "While there are some silks stronger than any metal, mine is still about the strength of steel. I think I could hold you." The smirk never leaves his lips even as he closes his hands again, pressing his wrist together and bring them to his mouth. While most of Yuriko's vision would be blocked, she would be able to see that he was using his teeth break them from his his wrists and eat the bit of webbing that was exposed.
Yuriko quirks a pale brow again, curious, though her own smirk still lingers. "And my bones are stronger than diamond. I'm fairly certain that I could break through it. But you lost your partner in crime, so we might never know." She wrinkles her button nose cutely at him, chuckling. "Do you still want cookies? This time I'll just give them to you."
"If you'll just give them then it's boring. Isn't half the point in a hunt the chase?" Naoya looks towards the dam and nods his chin towards his once and shrugs. "She's thinking with her tongue, I wants something different. Even if she did retreat, doesn't mean I won't stand against you alone." When the young teen says the word 'alone' his right hand sinks into his thigh pouch and withdraws a trio of blades while his left hand makes a partial seal in front of his chest, seeming to focus to a point.
Pausing briefly, Yuriko gives him a curious look. "Are… you not wanting the cookies then? What exactly do you want?" He seemed rather intent on facing her. Yuriko could feel the focus of energy building up inside of her. "Hm." A small hand scratches at the back of her head, pondering before ultimately shrugging her shoulders to herself. "So, what's in it for me?" the small girl smirks.
"I don't like sweets too much. They mess with my teeth and their venom." Naoya slowly spins the blades in his hands while walking backwards, trying to keep distance between them two of them. "You get to see if I can boil your blood, if you want another prize.." With little further warning, the young Okumo whips his arm forward with a under toss, causing the flung blades to at first dip close to the ground before arching upwards quickly towards Yuriko. "Name it!"
What smile there was disappears as Yuriko suddenly moves, she small form twisting in a graceful step that, while is so close at first, avoids all three thrown kunai. She uses the momentum to her advantage. While she's propelled forward, Yuriko reaches up over her shoulder to cleanly pull bone from her shoulder, ivory sharpening as it's yanked free of it's flesh sheath. "Just don't die." Chakra pulses through the Camellia blade, intending to stun Naoya with her first strike before following through with a harder slash.
The taunting smirk on Naoya's slips fades when Yuriko weaves around not just one of his blades but all three without a mark. Instincts warn him to 'move', quickly trying to watch the direction of Yuriko's slash and skirt the edge of her blade though he doesn't manage to move fast enough. When the blade first touches him and fails to feel warmth of a cut. Confusion is painted on Naoya's face but staggers on his feet when a quake ripples through him, hardly giving him enough time to tense his body against the following slash which does cut into him cleanly.
Drawing his arms close around where he was cut, the young Okumo tenses his right leg and sweeps it forward, trying to low kick Yuriko's shin. There was something odd about the strike, unlike his left leg, several spiders were riding Naoya's leg, having spun a layer of webbing around it close to the ankle.
His leg sweeps, finding nothing but air as Yuriko moves with swift grace, flipping backwards on her hands to smoothly land with a sliding stop. Her feet grip the loose ground as she narrows her gaze on the boy, calculating how many more strikes her prey can take before going down. Falling at her feet… A slight smirk touches her soft lips again. "How is this supposed to make my blood boil again?" Just as she says this, Yuriko pushes off with a sudden burst of speed. Wrist flicking the blade with a practiced motion.
Naoya's eyes stay widened as he watches Yuriko move almost effortlessly around him and around his strike. Rather than move away, the teen charges forward and moves to the side to have the young girl cut past him, the choice causes a blade to cut into his shirt but luckily not his flesh. For a moment, Naoya began to make a sound as if he was going to speak, but grumbles and preserves his silence, while tensing his hands. Pausing some what heavily on his left foot, the young teen moves his hands from his chest to his hips, quickly draws out a pair of longer kunai and hurls them at the back of Yuriko's thighs.
Yuriko almost scowls to herself when she sees no blood spilled, but it was foolish to think that every attack would connect. She doesn't miss a step. The kunai are pulled out, thrown and deflected as the Camellia blade slashes at them, flicking them way and into the fog. The ball of her foot pivots the girl into a spin, twisting into another graceful move as her blade makes another slash.
Naoya hardly had time between watching his kunai's being cut down before a pair of deft slashes cut into his chest while retreating. After each slash which drew blood, the young teen's movements became growingly dull but he was on his feet. The final cut manages to sink deeply into his side, following across his stomach leaving him to fall down onto his knees but not yet dead. "..yield. I yield.." was all he said though the brood within him began to crawl from within their nesting points and react on their own. Some of the small creatures began to try and spin webbing to staunch the wounds while others acted as crude protection, a layer of armor over his exposed body.
His movements became slower, pain exposed with each slash until… his blood became visible on the foggy floor. Hearing the strained words, Yuriko tightens the grip on her blade for a moment before relaxing, becoming limp as the tip of the blade begins transforming into fine dust. Soon fading away completely. Exhaling a small breath, Yuriko takes a few steps to close the distance between them, careful not to make any sudden movements that might trigger the protective brood. Leaning in, she touches a small kiss to his temple. "Hop on my back. I'll carry you to the hospital."
"Too small.." Rather than displaying boasts of anger the brood stays oddly still for the most part. Naoya doesn't seem seem to react to the light peck but he does begin to stand. The teen's eyes were cast towards the ground and mostly closed while muttering to himself. "..need to ..move faster" Naoya raises an arm up, seemingly trying to wrap it around Yuriko's shoulders for support.
Yuriko exhales a small breath that resembles a sigh as she shakes her snowy head to herself. "I'm stronger than I look. I promise." As he struggles to stand and his arm reaches out to her, the small girl instinctively dips herself into the crook of his arm, reaching to take his hand to help it over her other shoulder. Shifting her weight, she leans him into her back to partly carry his weight. Whether or not he objects, Yuriko begins to carry him, his feet lifting so that she can carry him. She uses this to begin a smooth, steady speed, making sure not to bump the boy too much.
