This chapter was fun to write. I had blast making up Takaguru's abilities and i had even more fun with the fight itself. I hope reading this chapter is as enjoyable as it was to write it! I own nothing except my own characters.
Somunekai Takaguru stepped forward, toward the lone freshmen at the center of the room with a scroll in her hand. He'd been itching for a good fight all summer, and now it was finally here, or so he hoped. Even though she was a freshmen, he didn't want to underestimate her. The people who appeared the weakest were often among the strongest in his mind. He didn't care if he won or lost though. All that mattered to him was that she put up a good fight.
They stood a good distance from each other, but close enough to speak. "Look. I don't care if your a freshmen or not. All I want is a good fight. Give this fight your all and don't expect me to hold back. That's all I want."
She grinned confidently. "Wasn't planning on anything else. And just so you know, the name's Tira."
Takaguru felt a smile spread across his face. He liked Tira. She had an attitude. He just wanted her to have the skills to back it up. "Takaguru," he told her his name. He opened his arms as if he would let her have the first blow. "Whenever you're ready."
She nodded and bit her thumb while opening the scroll with her other hand. He let his hands fall back to his sides as she ran her bleeding thumb down the scroll and a bo-staff appeared out of it. Then the girl snapped her wrist and three shurikan appeared in her hand.
Without a moment's hesitation she whipped them at Takaguru. He managed to do two hand-seals before the shurikan reached him, and they stopped in mid-air just before they made contact and dropped to the floor. Tira seemed surprised. "You'll have to do better than that if you want to win," he told her as a smirk of confidence appeared on his face. He loved his jutsu.
The surprise faded from her face and was replaced with another grin. "This should be interesting to say the least." With that she charged. He was still holding his hands in a hand seal.
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Tira ran toward Takaguru, staring directly into his eyes. She didn't know exactly how he stopped her shurikan, but she had confidence she'd figure it out by the end of the battle. She spun her staff around herself as she approached him, using the momentum of movement to increase the power behind her coming attack. She aimed her strike directly at the side of his head. He didn't flinch. She felt her staff stop abruptly as if she had struck a rock, but the staff hadn't reached her target yet and she couldn't see whatever she'd hit with her staff.
Acting on impulse, along with the recoil of the staff, she spun around and targeted his hip with the other end of her staff. Again, he stood still and she hit another invisible wall. She attempted to uppercut him with the weapon, but she was blocked once again by a substance she could not see. Takaguru performed two more hand-seals and her arms were suddenly frozen, as if encased in transparent marble.
Takaguru kept forming hand-seals and Tira's arms were forced to her sides. He continued his seals and she was abruptly hit in the chest by another invisible object and she flew backward as the wind escaped her and she dropped her staff.
She hit the floor, but could not reach her feet or even her knees. She'd need to obtain a second wind if she wanted to get up. Winning this fight would be extremely harder than she originally thought. "Hurry up and get up." Takaguru was mocking her. He looked like he was getting bored already. "I'm not done yet."
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Kimio stood near the edge of the "gym" next to Kaita, wondering what type of technique Takaguru was using. Kazemaru, the jackass, stood near them. Tira hadn't even been able to touch Takaguru, yet he had barely moved at all. Kimio remembered the previous day when the same thing had happened to Onimaru. She suspected that she was the only one who saw Torishima move. He had moved so fast that most people that hadn't trained heavily in Taijutsu couldn't have seen it. She looked down at the sarashi wrap covering her arm and as if she could see through it, she saw all the cuts and scars on her own hands from fighting. She shook her arms from her mind. It wasn't the time to reminisce on training, it was the time to observe an interesting fight.
To Kaita, she said, "How's he stopping her attacks? You know?"
Kaita brought his hand to his chin, something he'd do frequently when he was thinking. "I don't know. He probably just makes himself really fast or something."
"No," Kazemaru interjected, "it's something different. Every time she attacks, she hits... something. It doesn't look any different form air, but it seems to be a solid."
Kimio highly doubted Kazemaru knew what he was talking about, but she agreed that he wasn't making himself any faster, she would have noticed that. "How can you know that?"
He turned toward her and pointed toward his eyes. "These aren't just for show. You may not like me, but at least I know what I see." She looked at his snake-like eyes. Kazemaru even talked with a slight hiss like a snake, and he seemed to move like one to sometimes. Kimio found snakes revolting.
"Ya' know Kimio, he might be right." Kaita was agreeing with Kazemaru.
"About which part?" She answered with a question. "The part where there's something solid in the way or that I don't like him."
Kaita sighed, but gave a slight smile nonetheless. "Both." Kimio couldn't help smiling. Kaita was one of the only people besides those in her family that could make her smile. Kimio heard Kaita gasp. "No way..."
He only did that when he found something astonishing. "What?" She knew he'd just figured out what Takaguru's ability was.
"That's genius... I think he's turning the air itself into a solid!" Kimio felt her eyes widen. If Takaguru could solidify air, then there would be little anyone could do against him, let alone Tira. The rest of this fight would either be extremely boring or extremely interesting. She hoped for interesting. Either way, she was still eager for her turn to fight.
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Kutarro Saisha watched as Tira struggled to her feet after getting the wind knocked out of her by Takaguru's "invisible" blow. Saisha had already deciphered his jutsu and knew how it worked. By concentrating his chakra into the air around him, he could actually move the air closer together on a molecular level, thus creating a synthesized solid out of air without a change in temperature or pressure. It probably used up an immense amount of chakra to pull something like that off, and he was being wasteful. He wouldn't last much longer if he kept using his jutsu when he could just as easily dodge Tira's attacks; he'd collapse from exhaustion soon if he wasn't careful.
As a rule, some juniors and seniors were allowed to witness whatever the instructors had come up with in order to test the new freshmens' abilities. This year it would be interesting to say the least. The freshmen fighting the sophomores was something Saisha couldn't pass up, even though she hated fighting. She didn't really hate fighting itself though, she knew that sometimes it was inevitable, but she hated the idea that fighting was fun. Another reason Saisha showed up to watch was that these new freshmen were going to be mentored by her older sister Motoko.
Tira was on her hands and knees now, breathing in great gulps of air as she recovered her breath. Against any of the other sophomores she would already be unconscious, but against Takaguru, the fight would continue without reason until either his passion for fighting was satisfied or he grew bored of her. This side of Takaguru annoyed Saisha to no end. He had great abilities that were hard to counter, and would be a valued ally in certain situations. He, however, liked fighting so much that it put him, and those around him, at risk. When, and if, he finally was allowed to participate in missions, he was going to get himself, or someone else, killed.
Tira had finally gotten to her feet, though she was still hunched over and breathing heavily. "Sorry 'bout that," Takaguru began his false apology. He was probably sincere about what he was about to say, simply because he wanted to prolong the fight. "Didn't mean to knock the wind out of you." He probably really hadn't meant to do it either. "I want this fight to be hard for me, not easy." Tira's eyes flared with anger and resentment.
Saisha could see that Tira was not normally a very hateful person, but as she corrected her posture, Saisha could see that at that moment, Tira hated Takaguru with every fiber of her being. Tira stared at him with an intensity that could have made some of the most confident people in the world flinch. Takaguru didn't, but he was just stupid.
Not only was he using his chakra too much, but he wasn't using his physical abilities as much as he should have. In fact he hadn't used one one physical attack yet in the fight. Tira, on the other hand, even using mostly physical attacks, was using her chakra more than he'd been using physical abilities. She'd used it to guide her shurikan, and to enforce the power of her blows with her bo-staff. Saisha was interested to see what other weapons she had in the other three scrolls she carried.
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Tira stared at Takaguru with the intent to kick his ass so bad she'd send him to the hospital. She grabbed the second scroll from her leg. As a rule in close-quarters combat, the aggressor usually took the most damage; this time she would wait for him to come to her.
She opened the scroll and ran her thumb down it, even though the blood coming from her thumb had half dried. There was still enough wet blood for a sufficient firing of the jutsu. She infused her blood with her chakra and fired the jutsu, effectively summoning two katana from the scroll. She grabbed the katana before they even began to fall and held them in front of her as she widened her stance and drew back her right foot directly behind her. The blade of the sword in her left arm crossed in front of her face, just below her line of sight to him. The other level with her waist and the tip pointed toward him.
He grinned at her from across the room. His attitude wasn't cocky or arrogant, however. Somehow, she really believed that all he wanted was a good fight. She'd give him more than that.
Takaguru began to do hand seals as Tira realized that she was about to give him exactly what he wanted. What he didn't know that it was kind of what she wanted as well. She was mentally prepared for the rest of the fight now. She gave him the same grin he'd given her only a second earlier. She widened her stance even more and gripped her katana so tightly that she felt the fabric that lined the hilt crunch beneath her grip. She couldn't see his jutsu, but if she attacked and with intensity once he reached her she still had a chance to win this fight. Relentless attack was her strong point anyway.
Takaguru jumped into the air and did a final hand seal, but he didn't fall to the ground. He seemed to levitate when he should have fell, giving her a slight grin which merged into a look of seriousness as he pulled two kunai from his ninja carrying belt and readied them in reverse grips. His body then suddenly without any muscle motion rotated toward her and began to approach her, with a circular object vaguely becoming visible because it parted the air as it moved. In seeing this Tira finally realized what Takaguru's jutsu was: he used the air itself, that was why she couldn't see it, it was just a solid.
As he approached in a crouch Tira's body tensed, but she did not move a muscle. She was excited to be fighting someone he never had before. Still well beyond her reach, Takaguru began to rise into the air. He was going to attack from above to compensate for his lack of reach. He reached the peak of his climb and jumped off of his platform of air. He spun as he flung on of his kunai at her. She deflected it with her katana, sending it to the floor where it stuck.
She looked back to the air for Takaguru. In his jump he had overshot her. He did two hand seals in mid air, still holding his second kunai knife. Directly above her he planted himself on a wall that she could not see, stopping his forward momentum. He kicked off the wall, coming almost straight down at her. He thrust his kunai at her and she jumped out of the way fairly easily.
In the middle of her jump, when Tira was sure she was out of his way, she stuck the katana in her left hand into the floor behind her, spun around it, and vaulted herself back toward Takaguru, picking up her katana as she flew toward him. Her arms behind her, she kicked forward with her right foot catching him in the side of the ribs before he cold either hit the ground or do a hand seal. As he flew back she realized that she had found out how to beat him. She had to attack before he used any hand seals.
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Takaguru felt the searing pain in his side as he flew away from Tira. His arm was still extended, but he had dropped his kunai when she had kicked him. As he started to fall to the floor he planted that hand on the ground and flipped himself upright. The pain from her kick returned and he knew that she had broken at least one of his ribs. He landed on his feet and began to look up to search for Tira, but he didn't need to. She was already directly in front of him winding up a strike with her katana. He reflexively leaned backward with a jolt and the sword barely missed his face.
He attempted to move his hands together to do a hand seal, but he felt a kick on them and they were forced apart. His eyes widened as she was already using the follow-through for another attack with her other sword. He let his legs collapse and fell towards the floor, dodging the sword narrowly once again. He planted his right arm on the floor and kicked at her feet. She jumped and avoided his attack, but while she was doing that he had reached inside his carrying belt and pulled out yet another kunai. He whipped it up at her face as another surge of pain riddled through his body. He ignored the pain as she tilted her head back in a dodge and, his hand still planted on the floor, kicked upward.
His foot connected with her jaw as she attempted to look back down at him. She dropped her swords and landed flat on her back, giving Takaguru time to get up as well. This was what he had wanted. He had wanted a good fight that made him sweat and gave him a challenge. He was glad he hadn't finished her off when he knocked the wind out of her earlier. He kicked her swords aside and away from her as she pulled out yet another scroll.
Tira bled from the mouth as a result from his kick. Her thumb had stopped bleeding, but she swiped her thumb across her jaw. She ran the blood down the third scroll and rather peculiar nunchucks appeared from it. They looked just like any normal nunchucks, but there was a blade that looked like a mini scythe blade on the end of each nunchuck. She looked pissed as she stared at him, holding her altered nunchucks out in front of her. Takaguru realized that he may not win the fight. It had been luck that he was able to get her away from him and now she looked even more intense. He felt himself smile in anticipation. He was about to get his ass kicked and he knew it, but he wouldn't go down without a fight. He wouldn't concede and let the fight go to waist.
I stopped here because the chapter was getting long and I was only about halfway done with the fight. The rest of it will be continued in the next chapter. If anyone has any advice on how to make my fight scenes better then please feel free to review.