[Kuronmeru Enyo]

blood as black as the ocean

The day had been dragging on for too long, and the majority of it had been spent training. It was unusual for Enyo's father to take time out of his busy schedule to spend time with any of his children. In fact, it was unusual for any family member to take time, except at a hierarchal kunai point. Only the threat of punishment ever ignited enough fear in his older brothers to be around Enyo, though the feeling was mutual. Enyo never wanted to be around his older brothers anymore, unless he was trying to kill them. Though, he was not a huge fan of his parents either he could hardly deny either of them when told to do something.

In this case, the man had been irate that Enyo was making little progress since the academy. A few missions here and there, but no new substantial skill, and no prospect of entering the chunin exams. He had a new sensei, so there was a chance she might actually push him towards that, but the Kuronmeru did not trust an outsider to do the right things with their kin.

Which was why the disgrace was on his knees on a Kuronmeru compound training ground, panting heavily. His limbs were heavy, and they were not usually heavy. He was a princely boy who did not have to struggle much, he made others struggle, but facing off against his father? It was difficult.

His legs trembled, his thigh muscles engaging as he pushed himself to stand in fear of being called a disgrace. It was not a nickname that was used as often as it had once been, but it still slipped from his father's mouth on occasion. It was enough to make Enyo's entire being tense with anger. A contained anger because he could not properly retaliate. He not only held too much respect for his father, but he also knew that he couldn't beat the man. Even though the word struck hard.

Enyo dashed forward towards the man, a reverse grip on a kunai as he jumped to try and take the man from overhead. But it was all stopped with a swift kick to his chest, flinging him back, hitting a wall to stop his momentum and in that moment he just sort of slumped over.

"Get up, boy." His father's voice sounded out, but he was still trying to get the air back into his lungs.

Kuronmeru Keiji

aeron at thq

[Kuronmeru Keiji]

The compound was the same as it always had been. He could slip in and out uncontested, unbothered. Keiji was content to avoid the attention of his relatives. It sure beat having to talk to most of them, as his more noble relatives were expected to. Dogmatic geezers bored him to tears. A good chunk of them were just that, in his eyes. And nearly all were boastful weaklings, too.

In a way he could be his truest here. As a Kuronmeru, he was allowed free rein in the compound. As one with filthy blood, he was permitted more freedom in speech and action than his other relatives. So rarely did he get to openly deride fellow shinobi.

Their own vitriol spat back in retaliation never bothered him one whit. He enjoyed goading them - very much so. And consequences were scarce; Kuronmeru pride meant he'd always be allowed here as a courtesy. The shame of casting out one of their own would outweigh the absence of his annoyances.

A faint acrid odor of sweat wafted from the courtyard to the hallway where Keiji was walking. Turning the corner, he saw Enyo receive a nasty kick to the chest. Another opportunity for a little mean-spirited diversion, perhaps.

"Were you always this poor at teaching, Uncle?" he needled while leaning against the entryway.

"No need to answer, you were. The evidence is right here: look how I turned out!" Keiji said with a smirk, as he pointed at his dyed blonde hair and piercings. Certainly not how a Kuronmeru should look.

"Why not let me take over? I am the better mentor after all; I've learned from your mistakes."

Keiji's lizard-like eyes scanned the courtyard hungrily. He'd had plenty of lessons here. Given a few too.

"Besides - don't you have better things to do, than to tutor this..." he glanced over at Enyo crumpled against the wall, searching for a charitable word. Ultimately, he decided to simply cackle. It was a derisive, grating sound like a hyena's laugh.

---

Kuronmeru Enyo

[Kuronmeru Enyo]

blood as black as the ocean

The compound was a beautiful thing, if one had to ask any normal Kuronmeru. It had beautiful gates, ominous, black, red, reminding the world of the clan's majesty. But, they were not wholly much different than the gates of other clans, nor was the wealth of the Kuronmeru greatly exceeding some of the other 'great' clans of Kirigakure no Sato - especially the ones that belonged to the great seven that founded the village.

Keiji was only allowed in uncontested because of his Kuronmeru blood though begrudgingly and with no warm welcome. It was still a wonder why the man ever thought to wander in these parts.

There was no benefit to it, as he received nothing but sneers and for the most part the courtesy of being ignored. But not from Enyo's family. They were often the ones who would boast their status the most, especially the siblings. Though the mother and father practiced more restraint, they had the power of silver tongues and their words did not cut any less deep.

Enyo's father turned, with a dark aura as always that clung to him like a cloud.

"Hardly a failure of mine, I did not father you." He remarked coldly, it was a failure of Keiji's parentage. A miscalculation, infatuation, lust. Even now Keiji was nothing but a silly child looking to rebel against his parents. It was pathetic, to put lightly.

The man glanced over to Enyo, who was sliding up the wall, his chest heaving finally but painfully.

"This is my son, why should I allow riff-raff to teach-"

"Let him... Father..." Enyo was not usually so formal, especially not around others, and not around his siblings. But to his father and mother he was a perfect boy. Blue eyes met the coldness of his father's.

"I'll show him what it means to be a true Kuronmeru."

This elicited a smirk from the eldest of the trio standing there, amusement or pride - it was hard to tell, but he waved Enyo on.

"Then do so." It was then that Enyo's father stepped off to the side, staring daggers into Keiji who would now be allowed to enter the training grounds with Enyo.

Kuronmeru Keiji

aeron at thq

[Kuronmeru Keiji]

Keiji stepped into the training grounds, shrugging their words off as he did so. His kimono top slipped down and folded over his belt as he wormed his way out of his white shirt. The discarded garment was tossed onto the top of a nearby shrub.

He took his position opposite Enyo and stretched vigorously. When he was done, he carefully adjusted the thin mesh undershirt he wore.

Beneath it, scars of various sizes covered his torso and arms. Evidently he'd never bothered to avoid forming them or to remove them, though he could have done either with fairly elementary medical ninjutsu.

"When I was your son's age," he remarked whilst tracing a particularly grievous scar from his right armpit down to his waist. "I took my lessons on the battlefield."

It was only a bit of a lie. The Civil War hadn't started until Keiji was 16, but he'd at least been a Chuunin at 14. That'd entailed real combat with real stakes, against fellow shinobi, which he imagined was more than Enyo had ever seen.

"How long are you going to lag behind, Enyo? It's a shameful display for a true Kuronmeru scion such as yourself."

Keiji relished in the fact.

With a few handsigns, blood began to concentrate around Keiji's eyes. The sockets darkened; the pupils tracked Enyo's kunai. His posture slid into that of a taijutsu stance.

"Let's see you try to cut your cousin."

---

SPOILER: Click to show

Using Black Soldier, enhancing reaction time. Low cost.

Kuronmeru Enyo

[Kuronmeru Enyo]

blood as black as the ocean

Enyo's father did not comment, there was only some truth to that statement and frankly it did not matter. These were times of peace, and after the Civil War no one was egging the government to go to war again though there were plenty of tensions between Kirigakure and a few enemy nations. The economy was as good as it had been in a long time, better than most ever remembered it to be. The corruption was declining, it was difficult to throw children at war - it might just be easier to improve them over time.

Enyo was standing there, he was already quite tired but he was going to find the energy to fight the man just to show him that he was far from 'shameful' or a 'disgrace' as everyone seemed to enjoy calling him. Enyo's father tucked his hands carefully into the opposing sleeves of his summer yukata to watch the two practice. He was under no delusion that his son would win, the rank discrepancy was high, had this been his older sons the story would be different.

"What is shameful, is your very existence," Enyo goaded, his grip on the kunai tightening before he made his first move - he would throw the kunai directly at the man's face as he bit down at the inside of his cheek, hard.

Kuronmeru Keiji

aeron at thq

[Kuronmeru Keiji]

Keiji had spent many years hearing the same sentiment in voices far more vitriolic than Enyo's. Sure, his father had been shameful - they could agree on that, though they fundamentally disagreed on why that was so.

But himself? He'd never even dignify that tripe with anything more than a chuckle. It'd been years since any of his relatives had the gall to back it up with serious action anyway.

The kunai shot forward. Keiji, though, had already begun forming his handseal once Enyo's muscles had telegraphed the move. By the time it reached where he had been, he'd already flickered away and was standing to Enyo's left.

He let out a swift kick, aiming to slam his cousin back against the wall. After, he bounced away out of harm's way and to the other side of the yard where he bent over and picked up the kunai.

"Suppose I shouldn't expect all that much." he said. "We" - he intoned, sarcastically, with airquotes - "bluster and boast, but what do we really have to show for it?"

Keiji paced about with nary a concern for a counterattack from Enyo. The tip of the kunai was leveled at his uncle. "Not a single Kage!"

A mocking laugh rang out through the courtyard.

"Hell, there's not even a Kuronmeru on the council. Nor any division heads. Are we waiting for something?"

He turned back to face Enyo again. "Or perhaps you're all too weak to take it!"

With a flick of his wrist, he sent the kunai hurtling back at Enyo. He followed by pulling his tanto from his folded-down kimono then unsheathing the small blade. He ran in to engage in a knife fight, aiming to slash at Enyo's arms.

---

SPOILER: Click to show

Used Body Flicker, low cost. Black Soldier round 2/3.

Kuronmeru Enyo

[Kuronmeru Enyo]

blood as black as the ocean

Perhaps it was less gall and more the realization that no matter how disgusting the clan viewed Keiji's existence to be, they could not truly do anything against him as doing so would be acting against the village and nation. And as much as the Kuronmeru preached superiority, they still held a certain level of loyalty for their nation. It was a place they called home, and lived in harmony with others. Everyone here, no matter how inferior, was superior to the rest of the world. It was not a place they sought to lose with idiotic actions.

Enyo was left-handed so when the other appeared at his left, he reached out immediately to try and grab at his ankle. He was a fraction slow, which meant he was back up against the wall in moments. A huff left him, but he didn't dare stay down he started back up the wall, sliding himself slowly staring maliciously towards his cousin.

It seemed that the father was unwavering, Keiji was laughing and talking, and it all just proved that he was more ludicrous than the rest of the clan.

Enyo only briefly glanced towards his father, before he found the kunai being tossed back towards him. He moved to the right, the blade lodging itself into the wooden structure behind him narrowly snipping at some wisps of hair.

He had already bit into the inside of his cheek, and now Keiji was running to him to engage in a fight. The genin would draw his katana and prepare himself, stepping slightly to the side when Keiji finally closed in, moving his arms out of the way with a flick before he utilized this close proximity to spit right at Keiji's face with the blood that was swirling in his mouth.

Kuronmeru Keiji

SPOILER: Click to show

NAME: Tsuba no chi [Spit Blood]
RANK: E
CHAKRA USAGE: Very Low
CLASSIFICATION: Kekkei Genkai.
ELEMENT: N/A
DESCRIPTION:
A technique often used by the youth of the clan. When beginning to control their own black blood, one of the more obnoxious pasttimes was to draw their own blood and swish it in their mouth. Mixing it with saliva, it is spit into the eyes of the target. This blurs the target's vision as the black mixture stings and clings to the eyes. Manipulating the little bit of blood blurs the vision quite effectively, not quite to blindness, but creating enough dark spots in vision to make it exceedingly difficult to see. It is simply removed by being washed out with water, though many thorough washes will be needed if the user is beyond a beginner.

aeron at thq

[Kuronmeru Keiji]

The blood coated Keiji's entire upper face in black, seeping down into his open eyes. A black haze settled over his field of vision.

His hand quickly shot up to the flooded eyes to wipe them clean, but it was a ruse: his fingers were formed into the Double Vision genjutsu handseal. If his vision was obscured, Enyo's would be too. The technique was elementary, but highly effective against bukijutsu users if it landed.

Of course, he wasn't showing his cousin the caution he would with nearly any other shinobi. He was more concerned with measured actions. There'd no doubt be hell to pay if he plunged his tanto deep into Enyo's flesh, fun as it may have been. Yet the young shinobi wouldn't learn anything without a few cuts here and there. No doubt a sentiment his uncle could at least agree in part with.

Swiping his free hand against the wall, he cut his palm upon the lodged kunai's blade and then wrenched it free. With the last bit of ocular enhancement afforded by Black Soldier, he focused through the partial blindness and launched the blade down at Enyo's thigh in the hopes of grazing it.

Blood ran down the edge of the tanto as he gripped it in both hands and flipped it so the bladed side faced himself. Lunging forward at Enyo, he sought to get inside his guard so he'd be unable to maneuver his katana. If he successfully got in behind his sword, he'd slice upward somewhere along Enyo's right arm.

---

SPOILER: Click to show

Used Double Vision Technique, very low cost. Black Soldier round 3/3.

Kuronmeru Enyo

[Kuronmeru Enyo]

blood as black as the ocean

It would take quite a bit more than simply rubbing at his eyes as it would require water to get it out of his eyes, and that part where Keiji reached up to try and rub his eyes in a desperate attempt to get rid of the blood and saliva out of his field of vision, Enyo moved in with a smirk on his face, tired as he was, he could do it. He was certain of it, and he swung his katana overhead to strike at Keiji's forearm, the one that was engaged with rubbing his face. It was meant to cut as Keiji had goaded him on to do.

Alas, there was a genjutsu involved so it caused Enyo to miss. Blinking hard as he stumbled past his cousin trying to get his bearings, but he couldn't. Everything was in doubles...

Which meant he had to adjust his method of attack and figure out which double was the real one and which was the messed up not real side.

The younger Kuronmeru turned to face the older just in time for the kunai to graze past his thigh, it was a sting, but nothing significant.

The genin exhaled hard, and stumbled back when his cousin lunged forward, slicing down with his tanto haphazardly without precise aim into his right arm. Enyo's entire jaw tightened, he stopped moving as if to allow it to happen he would wait only a split second for the blade moving down into his flesh, making sure it was lodged before he reached out to grab onto Keiji's wrist, genjutsu or not, the vision was pretty stable here, fueled by pain...

At this proximity he hoped to catch the other off guard again, this time with something different, palm against wrist and then the flick of a mechanism that would release a hidden blade attached to Enyo's forearm to impale Keiji's flesh.

Kuronmeru Keiji

SPOILER: Click to show

Fumei Ha

aeron at thq

[Kuronmeru Keiji]

Pain seared through Keiji as the blade slid in between his right forearm's ulna and radius bones. It missed severing any major arteries, but the wound was rather major.

Releasing his unhurt hand from the tanto, he shoved himself up against Enyo - burying the hidden blade deeper - and groped for his cousin's fingers. Forcing them into forming the other half of a handseal, he performed a jutsu to turn some of his blood poisonous. Releasing the seal, he interlocked their fingers and anchored his hand in place with his thumb to prevent Enyo from easily backing away.

Tensing his right arm and hand as much as he could, poison blood burst forth from his wounds and slid down the tanto into Enyo's flesh. Keiji gave his relative a malicious smirk.

Releasing his grip on Enyo and his weapon, he dashed back. The blade left his arm - blood splashing down onto the ground as it did so. With a crouch and a twist, he kicked against the wall and wildly dove past Enyo with a sliding roll into the middle of the courtyard.

With a bloody smile, he shook himself off and splattered black all around in doing so. Now it was a matter of healing the damage and seeing how well Enyo could attempt the same. The boy was tired and though the wounds inflicted on him weren't immense, the buildup of fatigue, pain, poison and visual strain would take their toll.

Enyo would need his sight unimpaired though, if he were to learn anything. Keiji dispelled the genjutsu then slowly enunciated two distinct handseals. Targeting the platelets in his bloodstream, he used fine chakra control to speed up the healing process and clotted his cut hand and the gash through his arm.

Even if the younger ninja couldn't see the exact process, Keiji hoped he had enough basic knowledge to understand that chakra could be used to invigorate particular bodily functions. If he didn't, he could always explain the technique later.

He raised his arm, showed that the gash had sealed itself. Then he pushed the mesh up past the hole in his arm and did the same. With the blood loss stabilized, he focused on restoring his eyesight. Keiji formed his hands into a bowl.

Building up Suiton chakra in his chest, he spat it out into his hands and used the water to clean the blood from his eyes. Looking up as the greyish droplets rolled off his chin, he focused on Enyo while his vision cleared and watched to see how he would deal with his wounds and the poison - which Keiji was now manipulating into impairing his injured arm.

The pain now was searing, but not unbearable. A little personal suffering was worth it when cultivating future strength.

---

SPOILER: Click to show

Using Black Poison, very low. Using Accelerated Healing, medium.

Kuronmeru Enyo

[Kuronmeru Enyo]

blood as black as the ocean

The blade sinking in, the feeling of flesh against the sharp edges, it was enough to crack a smile onto Enyo's face. It felt good, and what felt better was the fact that he had accomplished exactly what he had been asked to do. To cut his older cousin, and cut him deep.

The hand seal was a bit unexpected but Enyo could not exactly do anything about it, the man was pushing past the pain, forming and forcing the seal. Blood started to crawl over Enyo, the poison was fairly potent but he couldn't feel it yet... He knew what it was, he wasn't naive enough. Though only a little bit had gotten into his wound it could still cause issues if he moved too much.

Keiji jumped past him into the middle of the training yard making Enyo's muscle tense briefly, but he moved past him. Slowly, Enyo turned. He was quite beat up, and there was a clear fatigue to his muscles. A fatigue that had built up from before Keiji had even arrived here.

He watched, he was unsure if the battle was over or not. Keiji was not attacking him, aside from the blood and he had done what he had set out to do, what he had been egged on to do.

In truth the genin wanted to collapse to his knees, but he didn't. Not in front of his father, he couldn't show that kind of weakness. He would die standing there if he had to, and never fall even then. There was nothing he could do, he didn't know any techniques that could help the situation, the poisonous blood in his own blood stream could not be extracted. All he could do was wait... Sure he could cauterize his wounds, but that wouldn't do anything in this case just get rid of the openings themselves in a forceful way.

"Well? Now what? You just gonna stare at me, ugly?" He spat, despite his fatigue, his tongue never tired it seemed.

Kuronmeru Keiji

aeron at thq

[Kuronmeru Keiji]

"Sure, we could stand here all day. Me, laughing at your dumb ass. You, bleeding into the dirt like a moron." Keiji seemed entertained and animated; his knuckles popped as he flexed his hands. "I'd be wildly content to poke you full of holes, but how would you end the day? Let your daddy fix your boo-boos?"

He didnt even bother to look over at his uncle, who was sure to be having some kind of amusing reaction. Keiji had long ago chocked up his value as not-much. His uncle's prime had come and gone and he had, in Keiji's eyes, very little to show for it. Evidently, he wasn't even capable of teaching Enyo the basics their clan required. Either that or he couldn't be taught.

"Have you learned nothing? You need to be self-sufficient, in everything you do. You think the clan will follow you out to every battle?"

Digging about in his kimono, he fished out a roll of bandages and ripped two lengths from it. Keiji muttered some obscenities regarding Enyo and then he tossed him the rest.

"Please tell me you can at least dress a wound. I'd be very ashamed of our family if you couldn't."

Without waiting for a reply, he narrated in a mocking voice as he bandaged his arm.

"Fold over the end, then wrap it tight on the first round. Looser on the next few." The white cloth was wrapped around his arm expertly, with the right amount of pressure but held in place firm enough to survive any form of movement. "And then the knot," he said while tying it off. "Or, for you, a fancy bow or some such nonsense."

"If you can't even do that, you won't be worth anything as a medic." He shook his head a wry grin on his face as he thought: teaching him this comes down to me?

---

Kuronmeru Enyo

[Kuronmeru Enyo]

blood as black as the ocean

Enyo sneered a bit, his upper lip curling in disgust at the idea that his father would do anything of the sort. The man was well versed in the medical arts, but to think that he would heal his own children? It was an impossibility. After all, Enyo had already experienced something akin to death before and it was by his father's own hand. There was little to no chance that the man would ever do what Keiji suggested.

Especially not when the wounds were a result of training.

Enyo's thigh tensed a bit, seized almost as he made sure that he didn't lose control of it and fall over. Then came the roll of bandages, tossed towards Enyo. What kind of freak carried around bandages like that when at home and not on a mission? Apparently his freak of a cousin.

He caught the roll as it wasn't tossed in any particularly harsh way, and with his ears totally turned off he went to sit down. Ideally the poison would be extracted, but it was such a low dose perhaps he would not need such a thing, the issues associated with it would go away in time, or someone in the clan would help extract if it got worse.

But if they were done with their battle he would need to work on his medical skills for the time being. So he rolled up his sleeves the best he could, and focused chakra. He needed to force cauterize before he started to wrap the wounds up, no reason to waste precious blood and bleed everywhere after all.

"I know how to wrap a bandage, idiot."

Kuronmeru Keiji

SPOILER: Click to show

Shōshaku no Jutsu [Cauterizing Technique]

aeron at thq

[Kuronmeru Keiji]

"Really? You'll have to forgive me, I've come to expect very little."

Keiji walked over to the bush where his shirt was, grabbed it and shook it off. Slipping into it, he pulled his kimono back up into place.

He came to stand beside Enyo and said, "That works, but it's horribly basic." Keiji folded his arms and pointed a finger down at where Enyo was aiming to cauterize. "It's easy enough to work on the outside, but if you want to heal yourself you ought to work on the inside."

Of course, this all required advanced chakra control. Just how fine Enyo's was, he wasn't sure. And regardless, he wouldn't master it today. "It takes more skill, but it's also more efficient. All you've been doing is applying chakra to the outside. Any half-decent medic could do that."

"What I did wasn't horribly different from our techniques. Blood Regeneration, in particular." Sliding his sleeve up, he showed Enyo the clotted up wound once more in closer detail.

"Instead of using chakra to improve the speed at which it regenerates, use it to manipulate it. Move the blood from around your body to the wound. You want to use the platelets from any given amount then swap it out for fresh blood once they've been used up."

---

Kuronmeru Enyo

[Kuronmeru Enyo]

blood as black as the ocean

"Tsk, extracting poison is well beyond a genin's abilities..." Well, at least it was an extremely high-ranked technique and while he could potentially invest his time in doing it. It would likely be time spent and wasted, since while he had the ability to work with his own blood, and had quite incredible chakra control for his rank and age none if it really mattered without a better understanding of the medical. He read scrolls constantly, because his family insisted on it. He was versed enough to get by, but not enough to further learn certain techniques as they required even deeper knowledge.

But the idea of manipulating his blood over to the wound wasn't a bad one, so Enyo kneeling started to move the blood on the inside through his veins towards the spot that was cut open, it was still quite raw and painful from his cauterizing but even a little bit of fresh blood in the area being forced to the spot might help. It didn't feel a whole lot different, and his face contorted. He wasn't one to really hide his feelings in this kind of company. There was no one to manipulate, he knew he wasn't really in a place to do so anyway.

"How long do I hold the blood there?" He would never admit that it hurt a lot, but it was obvious that it might hurt a bit as the blood was bulging slightly against his skin where he was applying it from the inside, creating an almost bruise-like appearance.

Kuronmeru Keiji

SPOILER: Click to show

using manipulate but too lazy to copy paste

aeron at thq