[Kuronmeru Shiu]

♔

There was a soft thunk as a senbon embedded itself into a wooden target, the sound gentle enough it was nearly buried under the shrill twittering of birds and the droning of instructors lecturing their students through the rest of Kirigakure’s largest training ground.

Shiu had been at this for far too long, long enough he had begun to lose track of time. With his brothers working on the use of their own kekkei genkai for the day, he had been sequestered to brush up on other, more menial training routines. According to his mother, many of his own kekkei genkai’s techniques revolved around being able to create imitation weapons on the spot. He had already learned how to freeze the air in his palm to make one, thin needle, but it did very little good for him if he couldn’t throw it. The only way to ensure he would be able to aim with precision every time was to practice.

The trouble was, it was a monotonous task, throwing things over and over again at non-human targets. Shiu did not like these mid-range drills. It was nothing like having a real person in front of him he was trying to kill. There was no pressure. There was no rapid heartbeat, no panting in rhythm from bodies well-exerted, nor the necessity of mental acuity knowing that one false move could be their last. The only thing he got from doing this was a wrist cramp. It was dull, and the longer it went on, the more frustrated he got.

Shiu glared up at the hanging target, circling his wrist with the fingers of one hand while rolling it. The target had initially jerked back and forth from the momentum of the senbon, but now it had finally begun to slow to an idle swing, enough for him to see that he had gotten even farther off center than before. He clicked his tongue against the back of his teeth, angry, annoyed.

Shiu marched up to where the target was strung up to a low-hanging branch and yanked the needles out of the battered cedar wood. He still had plenty of senbon on his person, but pulling the senbon straight out of the target was the closest he was going to get at the moment to the sensation of wrenching a blade out of another person’s flesh. It wasn’t good enough.

There was no other way he was able to train on this for the time being, though. And so, Shiu repositioned himself to the approximate spot he was at and threw the needle again. He would do this over and over again until he couldn’t stand it, then try to change the angle from which he was throwing, as if that did anything to lessen his frustrations with the exercise the fourteenth time he had tried it.

coded by pinn @ thq

masshiro

[masshiro]

    Some targets were easier to garner information from than others, and it was far too easy to glean the information he needed from the Genin in the training grounds just by watching for a short amount of time. There was little attempt to hide what he was doing, as by now people knew well enough he was gathering information for a large variety of reasons, even going to him for reviews of different Genin teams or copies of the information he gathered. Today was no different, as he walked the training grounds with a large notebook, taking notes without interrupting anyone, head down and circling the fairly large area quietly.


    Away from the larger groups he came upon one he was only partially familiar with training alone, stopping off to the side and watching the clear look of emotions on their face. The way they acted reminded him of someone else, but with less restraint, and the longer he stared the similarities began to vanish, causing him to take a few notes, sigh, and smack the notebook closed. Dropping it, it slapped against his thigh, hanging from a chain tied to his belt and dangling as he started to move a bit closer.   


    Reaching behind his back he pulled and something, then extended his arm in a quick flinging motion, as he let loose a shuriken. It didn't seem to hit anything, and given the angle he threw it, it wasn't seemingly aimed at anything or anything, but the was a soft clanging sound a moment later.


    Stepping out from where he was standing, he walked over and gently slid his shuriken off of the senbon stabbed into the practice target. Having thrown it in time to catch just enough to both move the senbon perfectly dead center onto the target and stop the shuriken's momentum, it hung off before he put it away behind his back.

"So, you're Inei's brother."

    The comment was more a statement than a question, and seemed more as if he was talking to himself despite looking directly at Shiu. It wasn't near as obvious until he turned to face him that he had a weapon slung over his right shoulder, looking to have some type of sheathe or covering over the majority of it above the handle. Slowly he lifted it and pointed it towards Shiu, narrowing his eyes as he looked them over for a moment before speaking again.

"If I recall, you specialize in Ice...and...medical Ninjutsu?"

    Looking down at the notebook, he stopped himself from grabbing at it and looked back up.

"I see you have a Katana on your hip, however. You know how to use it? Shouldn't carry a sword if you aren't ready to pull it out."

    Turning away he walked over and pulled the senbon out of the target, taking his time as he did, then walked over just as casually and slow and dropped them in a pile in front of Shiu.

[Kuronmeru Shiu]

♔

The frustrated sneer was wiped from his face in an instant as out of seemingly nowhere, a shuriken intercepted his senbon. It veered off the course he knew it had been sent in, but the adjustment was subtle. Shiu had his hair down, and it whipped with him as his body finally caught up with his mind, snapping his head in the direction of where the shuriken had come from. There he was a man approaching him, casually, with no outright cues that he actually intended harm, or at least the intent to attack right away. After a moment of staring, he allowed himself to look back at the target. When he looked, the swinging of the wooden round had slowed enough for him to see exactly where the weapons had landed on the target. Dead center.

Shiu turned fully to face the man that had interrupted his training.

It was not an easy thing to unsettle him, and even as the man rattled off very personal, and accurate, information about him, disturbed may not have been the accurate word to describe how he felt. He had seen this face in passing. Usually around the training yard, as he was now, but Shiu had never paid enough attention to take note of anything he was doing. It was an ingrained habit of his to give very little regard to anyone outside of his clan. However it was he truly felt about it, he knew he didn’t like how much this stranger knew about him, and once he could wrest control over the shock on his face, Shiu did his best to neutralize his expression with an unperturbed, albeit distrustful stare.

At the mention of his katana, Shiu’s hand drifted over to rest on its hilt. "Are you trying to start a fight?” he asked.

It seemed that way to him. Even as the stranger turned his back on him and returned his senbon, he had the nerve to question his abilities, and moments before had been pointing some strange weapon at him, even if it was still in its sheath. He spoke with familiarity about Inei as well, which did not bode well for any niceties between them. It would not be the first time that someone desired to take their grudge against his elder brother out on him.

coded by pinn @ thq

masshiro

[masshiro]

    Letting the sheathed weapon drop back onto his shoulder, he tilted his head, making no attempt to hide the fact he was studying the one standing in front of him. It wasn't judgmental, but it didn't seem that serious either, as if it was simply matter of fact looking him over as one would a tree or a building. 

"Hm..."

    Clearly the kid had a temper, something he knew all too much about and had long since grown out of, or so he liked to tell himself in his more calm moments. There was nothing else said to his comment but the noise he made, now just staring into Shiu's eyes. They were piercing, as if he looked right into the boy's thoughts, not moving even as he blinked.

"I've been studying your brother, and in turn, you."

    Turning the grip on his weapon around he suddenly spiked the scabbard into the ground as if it was made of paper, showing off his strength. A moment later he pulled the blade free slowly, giving it a full rotation in his grip before suddenly moving close as if he was thrusting it to attack, stopping it directly in front of Shiu's face.

"Have you seen this before?

    Turning it, just inches from his nose to make sure he could see it wasn't so much a sword but a gruesome weapon.

"Me and your brother have something in common you could say. I want to know if the two of us have anything in common as well. So..."

    Calmly he pulled the weapon back and walked back to where he was, gently placing the weapon back in it's scabbard and lifted it up, resting it back on his shoulder.

"...I'll ask again; can you use that blade? If not it's okay, I'll take it off your hands and you can go back to throwing your toothpicks. Only a swordsman should carry a weapon like that. I'm a swordsman. Your brother, he's a swordsman. What about you?"
    

[Kuronmeru Shiu]

♔

At hearing this stranger say both he and his brother were the subject of his studies, Shiu’s eyes narrowed. For someone who had apparently been stalking him and his family, he had seen far too little of this man. He shouldn’t have been surprised to learn that someone outside of his clan had nothing better to do than obsess over him and his kin.

In the next moment, the man swung that bulbous weapon as if it was no more lightweight than a kunai. Shiu took a step back and tightened his grip on his sword as the man drew his weapon out of its sheath and thrust it towards him, but stopped short. He bared his teeth in the face of this aggression, cursing he didn’t have the reflexes to parry this stranger right then and there.

Once again, it was not an attack, but rather an increasingly thinly veiled threat. With the weapon out and spikes hovering one false move from cutting into his flesh, his sinuses buzzed with instinctual trepidation. Given how close the man held the weapon, it took a moment for Shiu to adjust his focus to actually get a good look at it, but when he did, his eyes widened in recognition. It was one of the seven legendary swords.

That explained how he knew, and why he kept bringing up his obnoxious older brother. Shiu had heard that one of the seats had passed on their weapon somewhat recently. Apparently it had been given to this creep.

He might have said something to acknowledge this, too, but when the man withdrew his shoddy excuse for sword and proceeded to threaten his own blade, Shiu’s expression darkened with anger. It may have been one thing to talk down on him, questioning something as ridiculous as whether or not he knew how to use his own sword, but this man had actually claimed he would take his sword.

Shiu had heard enough. There was no doubt in his mind that this man must have more serious experience than he did — that much was plain to him from the hideous scar that ran across his face — but he was not some sad puppy that was just going to roll over when kicked. He would not stand idly as he was being insulted.

Shiu stepped in as quickly as his feet would carry him. When he felt his range was adequate, he closed his other hand over the hilt of his katana and drew, making a practiced horizontal arc towards the man’s abdomen. As it was just a first, unconcealed attack, he didn’t expect it to land. He did, however, want to see if the man would use that weapon to block, or if he would try something else.

coded by pinn @ thq

masshiro

[masshiro]

    Every action elicited a response, and every poke and prod both verbally and otherwise kept eliciting said responses. Masshiro by this point was taking mental notes of how the young man would respond to each comment, how he flinched at the weapons proximity to his face, the angry looks and scowls that kept getting increasingly piercing. There were many ways to get information, and unfortunately for Shiu, this was the method Masshiro picked especially for him.

    What he was getting was much of what he expected in truth, because he had been much the same when he was younger. He was fairly good at keeping his temper in check even back then, but his teacher well over a decade ago now, had a way of poking and prodding at him until he let out his anger. Unfortunately that was what she wanted to get a different result for training, and in this instance Masshiro simply wanted to gauge the reactions to know how to respond in kind.

    By this point he knew he wasn't going to get a verbal answer, but he wasn't necessarily expecting one, though he could see the way the young shinobi's muscles tightened, his jaw clenched, his eyes narrowed the more he stared angrily. He was going to get some sort of answer to his curiosities, and it might end up more interesting than he had hoped for.

---

    There was a reaction he wasn't fully expecting, as Shiu grabbed for his katana and drew it, not necessarily the unexpected part of the reaction. He certainly expected an amount of posturing or threatening, but the actual attack that followed piqued his interest far more than it surprised him. Without letting go of Uemori slung over his shoulder, he grabbed under his sash with his left hand and when it came out there was a loud clanging sound of steel against steel.

    Having planted his back foot he didn't move his body otherwise, as he caught and blocked the incoming swing with kobun blade. He didn't parry it or even try to strike back, as he looked Shiu over for a moment keeping his Katana away from his midsection with a weapon not even a full foot in length from end to end. His eyes looked over his form, mentally accounting for the speed he had swung the weapon, the way the swing was at the very least somewhat practiced from his stance and grip.

"Not bad. Not good, but not bad."

    Quickly jumping back in one fluid movement, his feet stayed in this exact same positions as he landed, giving distance enough that Shiu would have to lunge to get back in range. 

"You need to work on your speed, strength or both to make something like that work, especially against a stronger opponent."

    Sliding the kobun back into his sash he gripped his Uemori in a traditional katana style with both hands and stepped in, immediately covering the distance he had just made. In one swift motion he swung horizontal much like Shiu had at him, but the sound of the wind displaced by the sheathed weapon could be heard whistling as the scabbard covering Uemori barely touched the skin of the Genin's neck, pressuring it enough to let him know exactly where he was swinging. Leaning his head in he spoke quietly.

"Cloud-Style...Front Beheading technique. Very basic, very deadly."

    

    

    

[Kuronmeru Shiu]

♔

He heard the hiss of steel kissing steel and the resistance rattle his bones before he saw the blade. It was tiny, little more than a knife. It felt like an insult on its own to use that to block his swing, let alone with what he assumed to be his non-dominant hand. Shiu grit his teeth. He shouldn’t be stopped so easily, not by something as pitiful as that. He tried to push against it. His own two-handed grip should be able to punish what he perceived to be a weaker stance, yet it wouldn’t budge.

Before he could change his grip and wipe that stupid placid look off his dumb face, the man disengaged, jumping out of his range.

He eyed him, the pressure of his frustration building in him. He knew he had to work on his strength and he knew he had to work on his speed. That was a given. It was something he would likely have to be building on for the rest of his days. There was no need to tell him that, and yet this man with no clear goals or ambitions felt comfortable enough to prattle his criticisms away.

Once again, he brought that strange weapon that could hardly be considered a sword close to him, still in its sheath. He felt the leather spine of the scabbard brush against his neck in one swift strike. In all likelihood, the mastery the man had over his weapon, and the speed at which he could swing it, should have been awe-inspiring. Fear-inspiring, even. At this point, however, the man had rubbed it in his face no less than three times now, and all the posturing and weird unthreatening threats were just becoming a nuisance at this point.

"So, is this what you do? You stalk people, then give them feedback they never asked for?” As Shiu spoke, he reached up with one hand to rub his neck where the scabbard had grazed him. At this point, he felt confident that whatever this man wanted from him, he wasn’t interested in actually attacking him. He was just going to wave his weapons around and see how many times he could make him flinch.

Shiu eyed the notebook hanging on his hip. He imagined the man taking all sorts of notes, whether about he and his brother specifically, or anyone else who had the misfortune of being on the training ground at the same time as he had been. It was the practice of someone either bored or jealous.

"Shouldn’t you actually be using that thing for something useful?” That thing being, of course, the Uemori. Its new owner seemed much more interested in twirling it around like a toy than using it as intended. "That’s hardly even a technique. You just swung it.”

coded by pinn @ thq

masshiro

[masshiro]

    He pushed the weapon harder again Shiu's neck as if he intended to push him over, increasing the pressure with every word dripping with clear annoyance. 

"Is this what you do? Lose your temper at such a minimal offense and complain when your elders give you feedback? You only accept it when you ask for it?"

    Finally pulling it away he sighed, taking a step back but still close enough that he could reach out and grab him if he was so inclined. 

"I gather information, some for personal reasons, but mostly for the village. I use that information for a variety of reasons, even if you aren't aware that information was being used for your own benefit later on, or even right now."

    There was no anger or annoyance in his voice, just a simple calm tone as he explained himself, even if he was going about it in a sarcastic way to a degree. He had acted in a very similar manner when he was younger than Shiu was now, but he quite literally had it smacked, slapped, stabbed, cut, and beaten out of him by someone stronger than he was then than he was to Shiu now. 

"You are however a sibling of one of the Seven Swordsmen, and I personally find that curious. You were also here training alone, getting what looked to be frustrated over a simple matter of training. You clearly have a short temper."

    He could clearly see his eyes shift down to his notebook, then back up to his weapon, and he could see the comment coming out of his mouth before it ever opened. 

"You know, someone said that to me once as I raised a weapon to them. They were holding this very weapon as they stood across from me. "Do you plan to do something useful with that" she said to me, before she used this weapon to give me this scar. She's gone, and this is mine now."

    Raising his left hand he pointed a thumb at the impossible to miss car across his face.

"You're young, and you think you know far more than you do, and you think you'll eventually out duel, out muscle, out run everyone. You think swinging a blade is a simple task just because you grip a blade's handle and swing gracelessly. If it's such an easy technique, just swinging a blade, then do it. Show me you deserve to even hold that blade. Show me why I shouldn't simply knock you down for swinging it at me and just take it from you."
    

[Kuronmeru Shiu]

♔

The next time he pointed that eyesore of a weapon at him, Shiu thought, he was going to shove it out of the way. At present, having it pressed tighter to his throat, and all the man’s accompanying taunts, just made him sneer.

If he had known that asking a few simple questions was going to open the floodgates for this man running his mouth, he never would’ve said anything. He should’ve known better though. This man had been chatty from the very beginning.

Nearly everything this man said grated him, and in the privacy of Shiu's mind, he refuted every word bitterly. It wasn't a blanket issue he had with getting feedback from those with more experience, but rather it was being told the things he already knew. Useless advice, given to him by someone who must have been from some inferior clan. He also nitpicked the phrasing that he was frustrated by his simple training, because he knew this man didn’t see the bigger picture that it frustrated him more that he had been stuck throwing darts at targets, rather than actually having someone in front of him to injure. Then, finally, was the nonsense story about his scar, possibly an anecdote meant to teach him to be humble.

It was easy to take a look at Shiu and think he had never once endured hardship. He dressed in opulent attire, even at times where it may have been impractical, and looking upon his skin, there was nothing as evident as the mangled folds on this man's face. That was what happened when you were born in a family of medics, though. For every cut, there was an immediate fix. Nothing festered long enough to leave a stain on their porcelain skin. Whatever study of him this man thought he’d done up to this point, it wasn’t enough. He was speaking on things he knew nothing about, to call him naive. He was a soldier. He would ascend the ranks of this village and he would earn prestige within his clan. He would overcome his and his nation’s enemies with brutality, and he would outlive anyone who tried to make it otherwise.

If the attempt to goad him was meant to be obvious, the cues were lost on Shiu. His senses were smothered by fury. He did not care for the stranger’s challenge to replicate his stupid technique. He did not need to prove anything to this man. All he wanted was to mar his ugly face even more. Leave an even bigger scar than the one that crossed most of his cheekbone and forehead.

Shiu, again, would step in to cut a horizontal cross with his blade. This time, however, he wasn’t going to allow himself to just stand there like an idiot while this man ran his mouth and blocked him with the sword equivalent of a butter knife. If the swordsman blocked his attack the same way, he would pull back his sword and strike again at the same angle, battering against his guard. It would be a faster swing, marginally, fueled by anger and a lust for carnage. Following that, he would try to take advantage of what he hoped the swordsman found to be a predictable pattern of horizontal cuts to instead slide his sword against the kobun and push the katana forward with a thrust.

He did not have a second plan for if the man blocked or countered a different way or used a different weapon, only the desire to string an uninterrupted series of attacks.

coded by pinn @ thq

masshiro

[masshiro]

    The more he talked the more he watched, and the more he could see just what he expected, and more so exactly what he didn't want to see at this point. This was a familiar face in a sense, and one that he was a slight push away from striking. The look of someone that didn't want to talk and didn't want to listen, they simply wanted to attack, one he had seen in training for years. A face worn by someone whose manner of teaching was to smack him in the head until he managed to block, causing his eyes to twitch slightly at the thought.

    Staring into Shiu's eyes his own began to narrow, simply raising his hands still holding his weapon, and holding them in place as if he was about to start creating multiple hand seals, stopping on the first. His shadow looked to slightly grow and even move, but he didn't seem to move at all, but just as Shiu began to shift his weight and swung his weapon again, there was a second Masshiro much closer than he might have intended, completely erasing the distance between them so much so it was almost touching Shiu's chest. 

    The obvious clone reached out to try and grab Shiu by the arm as Masshiro's sheathed weapon appeared from the side to block the first strike. Sliding to the side where Shiu was swinging, he made sure his face could be seen, his eyes a much more pronounced crimson. The second strike was met but a solid connection, but not with Masshiro's weapon, but right into the arm of the clone. In place of blood was water, and as he thrusted his weapon forward the clone moved, making sure it went right through him. Slowly it walked forward until it was staring him right in the face, then instantly began falling apart back into water.

    With barely a blink of a moment there was the sound of movement and with no clone obfuscating Masshiro, he was standing just to the right of where he was before, but was now in mid swing, bringing his sheathed weapon horizontal across his body, trying to smash it right into Shiu's right shoulder. It wasn't with his full power, and certainly it could have been faster, but it was absolutely going to be painful and potentially caused minor damage if it contacted. 

Used a water clone, then activated the Jaakugan.



The strike was non-Buki

    

[Kuronmeru Shiu]

♔

Throughout the combination of assaults, the swordsman did not once bring out that tiny kobun of his again. When the clone manifested right in front of him, grabbing his arm, it cluttered his vision, and it may have given him a reactive pause had he not already been set on the path of what he was going to do. Dimly, as that wooden scabbard blocked his first swing and the true swordsman stepped back into view, Shiu registered something unnatural drawing attention to the man’s eyes. In his haste to continue his attack, it seemed almost as if an aura had begun to visibly emit from them, and Shiu knew it was unlike anything he had ever seen.

When his blade passed through the arm of the clone, he felt a frustrating lack of resistance. Part of him felt smug that he had made contact with a clone of one of the Seven Swordsmen at all, but the other part of him missed out on the tactile sensation of driving a blade through flesh. Instead, when he thrust his katana forward, it was as if he was being dragged down by the weight of an otherwise smooth substance, as if he had been trying to swing an arm underwater. He nevertheless made the mental notation, as half a body weight’s worth of water collapsed onto his sword, he made a small mental note of the stranger’s use of water for an elemental jutsu.

Shiu only turned his head towards the auditory cue in time to see the pair of glowing eyes and that scabbard swinging fast in his direction. Fast, but not nearly the blitzing speed as when he had used that so-called technique on him earlier. Shiu’s arms were still overextended from his thrust through the clone, and the sheathed weapon pummeled into his right shoulder with bruising force that made him bare his teeth to keep from wincing. The swing was powerful enough to force him back, but he had eaten blows like this many times before. Instead of getting knocked over, Shiu replanted his stumbling foot into a wider stance.

He felt a festering soreness sear through his shoulder as he forced himself to press forward. The moment he was in control of his momentum again, Shiu did not hesitate. He rotated his wrists to slice his katana in a shallow crescent swing to be brought down upon the swordsman’s weapon, which he may have very well removed from Shiu’s range by the time the genin had recovered or been able to slice his blade up and down upon the weapon. He anticipated his sword tip plunging into the earth rather than successfully keeping the stranger’s weapon pinned. If it did miss or otherwise be redirected to strike the ground, he would then slice it back up at an angle, not to try to hit the stranger yet, but rather in an attempt to fling dirt into his eyes.

coded by pinn @ thq

masshiro

[masshiro]

    His eyes were sharp, trained to pick up on details that would otherwise be easily ignorable. Having many years of experience over Shiu with holding a blade let alone using one allowed him to see the basic of movement and repositioning he himself learned early on. It wouldn't have been overly difficult to parry and counter attack, but this wasn't a matter of trying to actually win the fight or make it an actual fight. For all of Shiu's anger, Masshiro was keeping completely calm, making mental notes of the Genin's actions.

    With a quick step, he raised his weapon as if he was going to cross swords, but suddenly moved so fast he seemed to vanish for a brief moment from one position to another, standing to Shiu's left side now. A simple technique the Body Flicker Technique was, but for Taijutsu and Bukijutsu specialists, it was an essential part of their arsenal.

"You have a short temper; it reminds me a lot of myself when I was your age. Perhaps I pushed your buttons too hard."

    He wasn't out of range for another attack, which was intentional, but he made no attempt to swing or attack again this time. His Jaakugan was very much still activated however, making his piercing stare that much more unnerving. 

"I have no intentions of taking your weapon from you."

    Throwing his weapon over his shoulder he shifted his weight to his other side as he thought about what he might do next if Shiu did come at him with another swing. Narrowing his eyes his tilted his head and made a thoughtful noise.

"I appreciate your tenacity. Are you taking part in the upcoming Chuunin exams? If so, I'd like to teach you something actually useful."
    

[Kuronmeru Shiu]

♔

He saw the movement. He saw where the man had dipped his sword as though to intercept his own cut, but when Shiu brought the full weight of his sword down, there was only earth. Where he flung it back up, there was now nothing but a vacancy in the spot before him, and his mind registered the blur in his periphery before his body could react. In the heat of the moment, he did not see the inoffensive stance of the man that had manifested to his left. There was only the rush of combat, and the reactive animal knowing that he was about to be attacked.

Without thought, Shiu traced his foot back to whirl himself around, powering the speed of his slash by pushing one hand against the hilt to swing it faster towards the Swordsman at an imprecise horizontal cut.

It was only after he had already attacked did he see and hear that this man had no more intention to bait out more of his attacks.

Shiu pressed his lips together in a thin, unamused line. It was the second time this man had commented on his temper. It was not news to him that this man felt this way. Instructors often observed this of himself, and many would comment that it would be his undoing. It was difficult to picture a younger version of this man suffering this same infliction of character. He had a near vacant stare during their entire exchange, made all the more unnerving by the unnatural, glowing hue his already crimson eyes had begun to radiate. He did make an interesting concession, however, that he had intentionally riled him up, and that he was considering he may have taken it too far. While it was not quite an apology, the acknowledgement did interest him enough to listen.

Steadily, Shiu brought his own weapon down. He let it fall to his side but did not sheath it, not fully trusting the earnesty in this man’s words enough to completely drop his guard. When he narrowed his eyes, Shiu narrowed his eyes back at him.

"You aren’t just going to give a pretentious name to basic sword swing again, are you?”

Pretentious being a word he’d heard his parents use before, and it made him feel more sophisticated when he used it himself. In spite of his reservations about this strange man, who apparently liked to stalk people as a hobby, who was not a Kuronmeru, to carry one of the legendary swords meant to carry some degree of a respectable title. It wouldn’t hurt to at least see what this man had in mind for teaching him and judge for himself if it was anything worthwhile. He knew just minutes ago he was desperate for an excuse to break up the mundane regiment of his target practice anyway.

He did not directly answer the question as to whether he was participating in the chuunin exams. He felt his question was answer enough alone.

coded by pinn @ thq

masshiro

[masshiro]

    The incoming swing was not completely sloppy, but it didn't have the power nor the technique enough to be too worried about in truth. Sliding his right foot back he swung down with his covered blade and stopped it before it could swing any further and potentially do any damage. Seeing the way Shiu relaxed his muscles, he pulled back and let the weapon rest back on his left shoulder and slid his foot back up.

"I'm not the one who named the technique. Swing or don't, why do I need to name what is a swing to the head the ultimate cleaving demon beheading slash or some ridiculous equivalent. Call it a swing to the head, then swing to the head."

    Shrugging his shoulder he moved the weapon over to his other shoulder and shifted his weight again to a more relaxed stance. Masshiro simply kept staring, not letting Shiu get away with his sarcasm and quiet sassy looks this time. He had asked a question and if wanted an answer. Despite all the the attitude he had displayed to try and anger Shiu earlier, or the way he had tried to fight him momentarily, he was fairly blunt and straight forward most of the time. The real question was, who was going to be more stubborn.

"Are you joining the Chuunin exams or not? I'm offering help, so the least you can do is offer a response."

    
    

[Kuronmeru Shiu]

♔

To Shiu’s surprise, this stranger met his snark with a quip of his own. Even more surprising, he found some humor in what exactly he said, though Shiu would not show this outright in his expression. It was seldom he ever smiled, let alone laugh. There was only an easing of some of the tension from his face, his eyes steadily opening back up from where he had narrowed them before.

He could not fully relax though, even with the small common ground they seemed to have accidentally found on the naming of techniques. When Shiu looked at the man, there was still that dull red flare to his eyes. He did not know what sort of technique that was, nor what it was meant to do. Shiu could not completely let his guard down, and so he kept his stand and hand’s prepared to grab hold of his sword at any given time.

He resented answering the man’s question just on the basis that this man seemed to believe he owed him some sort of respect that Shiu did not agree with. Whatever his station within the village was, this man had, by his own admission, been stalking him and collecting data on his brother. Strangely, he did not feel too annoyed by the swordman’s roundabout demands at that moment. Perhaps in exchange for the small amount of mirth he gave the straightforward answer the swordsman wanted, saying, "I am.”

He paused, still maintaining his guard and trying to anticipate some sudden attack from this man who had thus far proven unpredictable to Shiu. With some guarded caution to his tone, he asked, "What did you have in mind?”

coded by pinn @ thq

masshiro