Before attacking Hanshin head-on, in a move so obvious and confusing that it would have made a mindful opponent question their read on the tide of battle, Meiko crossed her arm and smacked it by the middle with her elbow, raising the upper part with her fist up high. It looked pretty stylish and Meiko's burst of confidence added flare to it but it only delayed the incoming attack, giving her opponent even more time to properly analyze the attack and decide on a move of their own. Given how Hanshin was already much more experienced and likely faster than the two, as he was fighting on a perpetual lazy mode the whole time, it was not tough to see how Meiko's styling in the middle of a sparring session was a bad idea.
Regardless, the blacksmith launched herself head first. The control in her movements would have blown the clouds in the sky away in its awesomeness. Despite launching her body at speeds that could have allowed Meiko to apply pressure even on higher than average ranking ninja, the blacksmith did not even break the branch of the tree she vaulted from and generated no destructive air phenomena around her. Years after graduating, it appeared that Wakizashi Meiko may have finally learned proper chakra control.
Meiko's attack seemed almost foolish, in mid-dash she dragged her right arm across her left one, unsealing a short two-sided blade that she attempted to thrust through her opponent's face. Hanshin did not even move or twitch his eye. That same invisible force that plagued the young women this whole session blasted Meiko right in the jaw, making the redhead's face deform and her body freeze in motion before shooting off in a whole other direction.
However, instead of the body creating a trail of destruction in its blazing path, it poofed and created a cloud of tar-black smoke.
"A smoke bomb?" Hanshin mumbled to himself, grinning ever so slightly with the tip of his lips. He was almost disappointed that he was attacked so openly and in such a boring fashion. He was glad to see at least a minimal amount of afterthought being put behind such a useless rush forward.
"That was a risky move, throwing your smoke bomb out in the air like that during your posing. What if he had noticed it? He'd have read your substitution from a mile away…" Kiyomi contacted her partner, still looking out for her opening.
"He was admiring my posing. I knew he'd look into my movements and my flexibility instead of what I may or may not throw out. Thanks for that tip though, I'd have never calculated the right moment to substitute with such a small object." Meiko's reply emanated through Kiyomi's link.
As if blown away by a massive fan, the dark smoke from Meiko's smoke bomb all cleared out immediately. There was little doubt that the special jounin could use his invisible chakra armor to remove the lingering smoke but by that time it'd have been all too late. Just like that, when Hanshin noticed Meiko's actual attack coming, the young woman was already high up in the air, aiming to hit him with a hammer almost her own size.
"Useless!" Hanshin taunted the girl as she spun, flipped and proceeded to add more and more momentum before her upcoming strike. "Just like your posing!" the shinobi added. As a testament to his words and superior posing skills, the handsome ninja turned around and tightened his buttocks, bent his back in and raised one shoulder while letting the other sink down so that the risen shoulder perfectly obscured the vision to most of his turned around face except for his gleaming eyes.
"Weapon Transformation!" Meiko grunted after beating half of the falling distance. Her large hammer sunk in smoke sprouted colossally in size, becoming large enough to cover the entire training grounds field that spanned as wide as smaller settlements outside the village borders.
"Interesting…" Hanshin winked. What previously was invisible now lit up with bright, blue flame and, finally, he pushed his armor to a rank high enough for it to become visible.
The entire battlefield sunk in total silence at the moment when the two forces clashed against one another in a test of pent-up force. Meiko had the towering size of her transformed weapon, the accumulated momentum and the force of gravity on her side, Hanshin had all the force his armor could muster up at the rank when it finally turned visible.
It was barely even a contest… Meiko's hammer lit up with blue cracks and fractures spanning hundreds of meters that branched out and multiplied in a split-second and the whole thing exploded in a flashy show of light that dropped a cascade of falling stars across the entire tremendous radius the explosion covered. Meiko herself grunted out in pain, the strain on her hands at that moment must have been incalculable, Kiyomi got shivers just thinking about the times she hit a wall with an iron rod and her forearms got hit with the reverb from that hit, something on this scale…
"You should have canceled the transformation." Kiyomi contacted Meiko, choosing to dash after her friend and to catch her falling body right from the sky from as high up as she could instead of trying and attacking Hanshin during the brief opening she saw when the special jounin turned his armor visible.
"I really thought I could get him…" Meiko smiled even though her entire face was wincing with pain. "I guess it really was kind of useless, huh?"
"Not quite… You showed me a lot about his armor. The range for example." Kiyomi shook her head. "I've had enough of relying on you to give me an opening, that's how we always used to fight. Let's advance together now."
"But you're weak, he'll kick your ass…" Meiko got confused right after leaving Kiyomi's arms and standing back up on her own.
Kiyomi's eyebrow twitched and she barely resisted the overflowing instinct of socking her friend right in the face after that remark. Meiko was always someone who let actions speak and teach her, of course, she'd have thought something as foolish and shallow as that…
"Just go. I'll be right behind you." Kiyomi grumbled out.
"Alright…" Meiko tipped her shoulders. Her hands moved behind her back. This did intrigue Kiyomi, usually the blacksmith did not rely on her ninja pouch, it was sort of a supply for the blackest day when the redhead emptied her sealed away supply of ninja tools and weaponry. This choice of attack was odd, to say the least, then again, Kiyomi rarely used to try her luck attacking a stronger opponent directly. The last three years changed a lot of things…
"How about this?" Meiko yelled out while unleashing a storm of kunai and shuriken. There were no tricks or any techniques hidden behind these attacks. It was all just Meiko's natural lobbing strength and an impressive quickdraw speed. Launching deadly blades faster than a downpour threw raindrops.
"Hanshin remains unimpressed. Hanshin will remember that." Hanshin lowered his hands and hunched his back. His head sunk down in disappointment, obviously overplayed and acted one, a mockery of Meiko's hearty attempt of an attack. Truth be told, any normal day Kiyomi would be on his side, attacking someone of this rank with mere ninja tools was beyond pointless, size, the material used, the number of them… Nothing like that mattered, it was all just useless. Maybe if they all were imbued with chakra coating but… It didn't look like they were from where Kiyomi was.
The barrage of ninja tools bounced off of Hanshin, not even a sign of any movement from his side, the man remained in his mocking pose that he believed best embodied his disappointment. By now there was no enigma that his invisible armor did the dirty deed of protecting Hanshin. There was a modicum of something to be impressed by with how the special jounin managed to deflect the incoming attacks by barely even looking at them. The armor did not have a mind of its own – it was, after all, just a technique he used which meant he had to control and command every motion. At this point, the handsome devil really may have been just making fun of the two…
Meiko's strict glare right into Kiyomi's Caribbean-blue orbs scolded the Yamanaka like a shower of boiling water running down her head and shoulders. The young woman threw together a handful of her own hand seals, letting Meiko do her thing while Kiyomi did what she claimed to be able to do and sync up with the redhead. At this point her skillset was versatile enough for the Yamanaka to concoct something suitable for anything Meiko had and even some things she could surprise with.
"Weapon Transformation: Dimension Sealing!" Meiko grunted out, smacking her hands together. In a chain reaction of poofs and clouds of sand-colored smoke, the ninja tools Meiko had thrown, some of those that were easily deflected by Hanshin all transformed into dimensional sealing scrolls, identical to those that the blacksmith had used before.
The kunoichi dragged her palm across her other hand as if attempting to strike a spark and ignite something with a piece of flint. Instead of sparks and flames, however, an azure beam of light burst forth from Meiko's gauntlet of the free hand. After the young woman had completed her motion, an exceptionally long bow stayed in her hand, one of bamboo and leather, of completely asymmetric shape, that, from the first glance, made the bow look impractical and difficult to work with.
Just like a little shooting star, the arrow which the blacksmith fired from her unsealed bow was completely surrounded by whirls of Fire Release chakra. A coating of size and intensity that surpassed any previous shows of chakra imbuement. It appeared that during the three years of training Meiko not only had discovered her affinity for Fire Release but also enhanced her chakra imbuement skill to use her elemental affinity instead of just basic chakra coating, lacking any elemental properties.
The rushing arrow blitzed into the first dimensional sealing scroll it was fired at, appearing from another and then another, transitioning from multiple dimensional seals without losing any swiftness in the process. The fiery dance of the arrow threatened to penetrate or cut Hanshin by passing really close to him and the sheer size of dimensional seals all around him made it near-impossible to track the arrow's path without a supernatural pattern reading ability like the Sharingan of the Uchiha.
Two arm-shaped constructs of pure chakra formed around Hanshin, the special jounin used his higher rank of the armor ability he used to slightly nudge the blazing arrow out of the harm's way. Hanshin himself barely moved an inch from his position, the movement of his arms appeared almost effortless from his part which came without much shock from Kiyomi and Meiko's part. If it was the only ability that defined Hanshin's fighting style, used at average or lower ranks, it would have been this versatile and effortless to use for certain.
The distance that Meiko's blazing arrow had traveled, the dimensional pathways it crossed and the contacts with the enemy it had made appeared to completely leave its path unaltered. On the contrary, the arrow's flames appeared to feed off of the air around them and correct the arrow's trajectory. Increase its velocity by small amounts even, picking up speed step by step as it moved along. Soon, the blazing arrow had created a sphere of fiery afterimages of its complex path that erupted in a pillar-shaped firestorm, dissolving Meiko's arrow into ashes as its fiery chakra coating used the lingering heat of its own flaming tail to shape the firestorm and absorb Hanshin in it entirely.
When the blazes cleared up, a complete shape of Hanshin's armor was covering the man like a suit of actual armor but greater in size. As tall as the shinobi Adonis himself was, the armor easily added a meter or two in height and bulk as such intensity of the armor was required for the special jounin to remain completely stationary and withstand Meiko's crazy attack.
The armor was shaped like a mechanical woman, a living armor of the feminine proportions. Its head was reminding of a helmet of exquisite craftsmanship with the back and side of the helmet flowing like ghostly hair where a helmet's neck guard would have normally been. The eggplant-colored hair shimmered with violet aura, suggesting that the hair of the feminine armor was not to be taken lightly and may have just served the function of a normal neck guard if needed.
Hanshin's eyes still beamed through the open wine-shaded lips of the chakra armor, despite the remarkable light show of the set of armor coating the special jounin, Hanshin's eyes managed to overpower all of the beacons of light emanating from his own technique. The chest area of the armor manifested in the shape of a vest that looked like an open rib cage. The exact shape of the armor's limbs was too difficult to tell over the dozens of detached hands covering the chakra armor as if attempting to tear the armor apart piece by piece.
"Earth Release: Hidden Mole!" Kiyomi's voice interrupted the ghastly shrieks and crackles of Hanshin's armor that demanded total silence of all witnessing its appearance. With a loud and dirty boom, Kiyomi's dirty body burst from underground, splashing chunks of dirt all over the place as an attempt to utilize the devastated and mixed with the creek that normally used to run around these parts battlefield. Had his gaunt set of armor not covered Hanshin, the clever use of the swampy mush around would have worked.
Kiyomi burst from underground with a rising kick, a highly unorthodox manner of attacking after resurfacing above the ground level. The arm of the chakra construct armor extended to catch Kiyomi's leg by her ankle. The kunoichi drove her hands down and repurposed the force of her kick into a spinning kick, she managed to contort her body just enough to deliver a spinning kick with her free leg to the area between the neck and ribcage-style vest of the Hanshin's chakra armor.
"Your kicks lack the sting that your confidence makes Hanshin expect them to have!" Hanshin grunted out before shooting out the extended palm of his chakra armor aimed right at Kiyomi's chest. Given that the Yamanaka heiress was awkwardly dangling with her ankle firmly in his grasp and her other leg failing at the fruitless venture of chipping at the armor further but lacking the strength to deal any damage to it, avoiding this attack seemed next to impossible.
Kiyomi's free leg wrapped around the middle section of the armor like a vine, applying pressure on the elbow with enough force and skill applied to the one-legged hold that would have broken any of the punier arms that found themselves trapped within such a unique offense. Unfortunately, Hanshin's armored arm lacked any semblance of normal human anatomy to break in the desired way Hanshin's own arm was firmly locked around his chest, in the thicker, better-protected areas of the armor.
Kiyomi shot repeatedly with precise palm strikes at the elbow-area of the armor in repeated attempts to crack or break it in a spot that would have been incredibly sensitive in not only a living being but also one of any sort of mechanical origins like a puppet or a physical armor. Sadly, it appeared that due to the armor's completely immaterial and even spiritual upbringing, it did not bend its knee to the normal laws of anatomy, physics, and mechanics applied to physical humanoid shapes.
With a blink, the armor disappeared and then reappeared again, just a split-second later. This clever maneuver left Kiyomi free-falling as her ankle was no longer held by anything and her free limbs were no longer entrapping anything. A thunderous blast sent Kiyomi flying and sliding across the dirt to the edge of the training grounds signaled by a shaking line of ages-old trees that all erupted into the air from the immense force of Kiyomi's sliding impact into the forest line.
"You've drawn out Hanshin's Black Vicious, the strongest form of Hanshin's chakra armor. That will do for a sparring session. It appears that just like Hanshin had predicted, you will not just stand in the way of his trial to glory." the special jounin posed with the certain satisfaction and a hint of cool behind his primitive hands over his chest pose. His chakra armor became ever so slightly more transparent, no doubt because of the user's attempt to preserve some chakra. Manifesting something this intensive in shape manipulation must have greatly strained a user, even if the user worked their entire career to perfect their control and mastery over the technique.
Then, completely uncharacteristically for the man who took great pride and effort in his poses. Hanshin's movements stiffened, his Black Vicious blinked and lingered. The wine-colored lips of his gothic construct opened wider, revealing the entire face of the armor's wearer while the hands that littered the armor proceeded to rip the armor to shreds bit by bit and burn away like little, blazing pieces of paper.
Kiyomi stumbled out of the forest, wiping the blood off her face with a knuckle. Her body was rising up from a position where her palm was touching the mushy ground, eventually, it managed to straighten out, if a little shaky on her legs.
"I asked for this fight to get a good sock at your face. I'm not yet done with that…" Kiyomi grinned through pain and wear.
"You've placed your hair on me… Back then…" Hanshin recalled Kiyomi's desperate barrage of palm strikes aimed at the elbow of his Black Vicious. The strikes were relatively strong, strong enough for the special jounin to dismiss them as a talented genin's attempt to bust her way through his shell, weak enough to not even bother him about its chances of success.
"Took a couple of good shots to force it in. I don't think it touched you at all but… It doesn't have to, has it? When your entire armor is just a giant extension of your own chakra. My hair connected not just with your body but both your spirit and mind manifested. Meiko, would you do me the honors?" Kiyomi looked at her less banged up and worn out friend.
Meiko cracked her knuckle. She only had one good shot before Kiyomi's Yamanaka Hair Trap would have been broken. She'd better make it a good and stiff one.
A flow of emerald-colored light moved away from Kiyomi's face, having just finished treating her chest and the countless insignificant bruises all over her body. She needed to be fresh tomorrow morning, had the Yamanaka not needed to depart first thing tomorrow, the medical ninja on duty would not have bothered with the smaller cuts and bruises.
"I took a pretty mean blow. My chakra feels a bit wobbly, almost strained my network too much with the augmentation. Not sure it will be up to top shape by tomorrow." The Yamanaka explained to the medical ninja who just sighed and moved to a cabinet. The man took a little, blue food pill from a jar and handed it to Kiyomi for chewing.
Even with the walk of shame and the extremely blush-inducing licking of the wounds, punching Hanshin in the face, if just once, was incredibly satisfying. The two had advanced so far over these last three years. Before they'd have never landed a blow on an actual A-Rank ninja, they'd have been looked down on and barely even worth using the good stuff on. Now they hung around the same battlefield and were one step away from being peers… If only the Chuunin Exams hadn't gotten postponed…