[masshiro]

    Slowly he reached down for the notebook that was hanging loosely at his side, pulling a pencil from his sash, and starting to write something down. Nodding in response to the simply "I am", he started writing further, even looking as if he were drawing or scribbling, then slid the pencil away and let the notebook hang loose once more.

"Good. I'll be leaving soon for Kumo. I hope you will represent Kiri well."

    Without warning he began to look Shiu over, then started to walk a full circle around him, as if evaluating him based on whatever was going on in his head at the moment. He didn't say anything, didn't ask anything, just looked, before stopping back where he started. After a moment the glow of his eyes went away, turning back to normal, but the piercing stare was the same as it had been, clearly Masshiro's default.

"I have a limited understanding of your abilities."

    His statement was frank, and followed by a long pause, as he went through a mental checklist in his mind.

"Not fully aware of your clan techniques, though clearly nothing of them I could teach you. Of the little I know of your clan, I can assume we don't share the use of the fire element. Can you use water related jutsu? What's your knowledge level in regards to genjutsu?"
    

[Kuronmeru Shiu]

♔

Shiu narrowed his eyes and frowned when the man shamelessly pulled the notebook from his hit and started jotting something down, distracting him from whatever the man had just said. It was made even worse when he started circling to inspect him, not much unlike as if he were studying an animal. This made him bristle. He made sure he turned his head, never fully showing his back to the man. It went on long enough he considered trying to stab the man again. He pictured in his head catching the swordsman off guard, running to him quickly and thrusting the blade of his fumei ha right into his abdomen. Logically he knew it wouldn’t be that easy. Any swordsman was going to be a special jounin at least, and shinobi often didn’t get to that rank by letting their guard down easily. He did, nevertheless, take some small pleasure in contemplating how exactly he might do that.

Before he got too far in his plotting, the swordsman stopped his flanking and started asking him about his knowledge and abilities. It bothered him to think this man might have been referring to his Yuki bloodline when he inferred his chakra nature based off of his clan. It was not entirely impossible that he was saying this because of Inei’s lightning techniques, but he doubted it.

"I’ve never tried using any other element,” he said, slowly returning his katana to its sheath now that the glow of the swordsman’s eyes had dimmed. Ice had been his lifeline in a family that demands a bloodline technique. It was no good to have common blood and be unable to use a kekkei genkai of some sort. He would never be as strong as if he had been born with the right blood, but using what he had would be as close as he’d ever get. He saw no reason to dabble in other, lesser elements. "And most of what I know about genjutsu is what I was taught in the academy. Identification, some theories on how to break out of it.” Even as he spoke, he wondered if he really should be sharing this information with this stranger. He had claimed that he did these kinds of things for the overall betterment of the village, but Shiu had his reservations about the truth of that.

coded by pinn @ thq

masshiro

[masshiro]

    Masshiro let out a long and low sigh, wondering just what it was this genin in front of him specialized in. Despite any assumptions Shiu might have made, the swordsman in front of him didn't in fact know much of anything about his use of ice, only hearing mentions of it in passing from others and having no reason until now to investigate further. It did strike him odd that he didn't use other elements, if what he was referring to was only the use of ice, but it was a very young minded way of thinking. When you are given a gift, especially a strong one, there is always a tendency to lean into it at the detriment of other skills, which he himself knew all too well when he first picked up a sword.

"You should try to use all the tools you can grab and use them to prop up what you find to be your strength. I use my skills of genjutsu to better my weapon fighting, and my use of ninjutsu to better my genjutsu."

    This was a point and a fact he believed in strongly, and one he wouldn't waiver on in the slightest. Even the skills of his clan he used to improve others and others to improve them in kind. It certainly wouldn't be something he'd say to other members of his clan openly, treating them almost secondary at times, but they weren't the ones wielding Uemori.

    Every time Shiu spoke Masshiro watched him closely, listening to the way he talked, and narrowed his eyes further until he had finished. He looked so guarded, so distrusting, and it was the first thing that had taken place that truly got under his skin from this interaction. It didn't show, but he could feel it scratching at his mind.

"So, you know how to get out of genjutsu then? Is that what you're telling me?"

    For a moment he thought to simply cast a genjutsu on Shiu right there and test him, but further annoying the boy wasn't going to get them anywhere for now.

[Kuronmeru Shiu]

♔

Shiu gave a quiet, sneering scoff. He saw no way that learning water techniques could help with his ice release. In Kirigakure and the surrounding land, there was no shortage of humidity for him to crystallize on command. He didn’t need to produce more, or whatever else this man thought he could do to strengthen his ice techniques. The medical ninjutsu he was forced to learn, too, was a waste of time. He had his sword, and his ice, and almost anything else was just a distraction.

He saw no reason to argue over it, however. It was just another piece of advice from a non-Kuronmeru he could dismiss within the privacy of his mind. He did not do much to try to hide the disbelief in his expression, though.

"I know the theories of it,” he said, feeling as if he was repeating himself on the topic of genjutsu, and the annoyance at this was plain in his tone. Shiu nevertheless elaborated on what he meant. The academy may have very well undergone some serious changes since this geezer was last in it, and maybe that was why this man was so weird. "I know that pain can bring you out, but not every genjutsu allows that much control over your own body. The other way is a disruption of your chakra, either by a transference from someone else or by stopping it on your own. I haven’t ever trained to release it on my own with just my chakra.”

This may have been patently obvious to a genjutsu specialist such as Masshiro, too, because Shiu neglected to mention what needed to be done to actually push an enemy’s chakra out of their system.

coded by pinn @ thq

masshiro

[masshiro]

"Theories are useless without practical knowledge and experience."

    There was a certain level of telling himself that, given how often he took notes of other skills, jutsu, abilities, and didn't bother to put any of it into practice as if the skills would magically transfer over if he wrote enough. He was immediately snapped out of his thought however as he came to terms with who he was talking with once more. Most of those younger than him were quick to directly ask for advice, certainly they were happy to receive it, but again this was where Shiu reminded him of himself. This wasn't a fact that endeared the genin to him to any extent, in fact it annoyed the piss out of him, to the point he had to fight not to curl his lip thinking about it. If his old self was standing in front of him, it very much would have been similar to Shiu, but with a blade thrown over his shoulder thinking he knew better.

"What you just recited to me sounds great when you are taking notes in class. It sounds to me like you need to learn a simple technique; Disrupting your own chakra as you stated."

    Taking a few steps back, he held up his hands in a very simple way that was easy to mimic. It wasn't perfect, and it wasn't always the best way to use the genjutsu release technique, but for teaching purposes it was well enough.

"I'm going to teach you, and I need you to do as I say. If not, this could get very unpleasant. I'm going to cast genjutsu on you, and you are going to learn how to dispel it. First, put your hands up, similar to how you might cast a simple clone jutsu. Get used to how that feels. Tell me when you are ready, and we'll proceed."
    

[Kuronmeru Shiu]

♔

It was a subtle jab, but Shiu felt it nevertheless. This man had already doubted his experience, and now he continued to again.

It wasn’t untrue in this case, though. Shiu was woefully unprepared to face any sort of genjutsu specialist, and a part of him knew he was just lucky to have not encountered one up to this point. It was a glaring weakness, and one that, he would loathe to admit out loud to this swordsman, would be best for him to cover up before entering his first round in the chuunin exams.

In spite of this, the very idea of what this stranger was offering shot a spike of anxiety through him. It was one thing to face down an opponent, weapons drawn, taijutsu and ninjutsu alike. Whatever it was, he could combat it, fight back tooth and nail. To have genjutsu cast on him meant surrendering some or all of his control over his body, though, and to do so voluntarily required a great deal of trust.

Shiu eyed him warily. There was nothing he could think of in particular that this man had done to earn this trust from him. And yet, if he had wanted to subdue him with genjutsu for some sort of nefarious reason, there was nothing that could have stopped him from doing this already. It was not something that required his consent.

Try as he might, he could not think of a single reason that the swordsman would have waited this long other than a genuine desire to train him. Unless, perhaps, this was some long sadistic ploy of his. He wondered idly, again, about the glow of his eyes earlier, and whether it was some technique he knew about already but had simply forgotten.

He stared, unmoving, at the man’s hands, silently weighing his options. There was nothing stopping him from just walking away. Yet at this point, if he did so, it would come from nothing more than a place of fear, and fear was not an acceptable reason to stop him.

Slowly, he drew his hands together in the ram seal. After another pause, he looked from the man’s hands to his eyes, then nodded.

coded by pinn @ thq

masshiro

[masshiro]

    The apprehension was palpable, and he knew full well when he brought it up that it would be. Genjutsu wasn't a simple matter to tackle in training, and while he very rarely admitted it, he had experienced more than his fair share of bad experiences with it. Shiu put up a good front with his confidence and sass, but there was a certain way that the brain made it hard to hide fear over most other emotions due to the simple way physical reactions worked.

    At this point, Masshiro was close to waiting only so long and then pushing the issue further for Shiu's own benefit. There were plenty of those in Kiri that could wield a blade, could use all manner of ninjutsu, but he knew full well there were very few genjutsu masters. He was still far from being one himself, but it was certainly something he considered himself well versed in, more than most he thought in his own overconfident way.

"I need you to know, and I need you to internalize this, repeat it in your mind if you need to; nothing I'm about to do is actually hurting you. Don't scoff, don't roll your eyes, I need you to understand it, because once the genjutsu is cast, those thoughts are near impossible to naturally hang on to."

    Once he was confident enough to prepare, he closed his eyes for a moment, then reopened them, once more glowing that crimson red.

"I'm going to use a genjutsu that under normal circumstances, someone of your skill and experience simply wouldn't be able to break out of. To save the explanation, I'm going to dumb it down, but it's up to you to do the hard part."

    Raising his hand he clasp his hands together as if he were about to start a series of handseals, but in an instant he began to disappear, as if the wind was taking him and blowing him away, then he was gone. Just as quickly the ground broke open as thick wooden finds shot up around Shiu, until his entire body was trapped inside of what seemed to be a large tree trunk, completely immobilizing him, save for his arms. After a few seconds, an arm appeared from above, then everything from Masshiro's torso and above stuck out, as the small blade from earlier was held right up against Shiu's neck. Nothing was said, he simply let the situation sink in, waiting to see how the genin would react.



    

[Kuronmeru Shiu]

♔

Even as the man cautioned him to take this seriously, Shiu could not help but give the quietest scoff from the back of his throat. He had just explained how to break out of a genjutsu, did this man think he was stupid enough to not know what a genjutsu actually was? His experience with being put under genjutsu was limited, though, in truth. Only the inoffensive sort of mind tricks where the body was free to navigate the illusion and injure himself until it was released. It didn’t help that there was very little trust between him and this stranger, either. The only trust Shiu had was that they were in a public space, with other occupants spread out around them repping their own mid-day training, and that any experience he or his twin had with people attempting to corner them usually escalated much quicker than what was happening here.

Shiu waited with waning patience for the man to actually do something, giving very little heed to this man’s warning. His attention started to focus moreso on the subtle, irritating burn that started to creep into his arms from holding them up in the same position for as long as he was.

Before too long, there was, again, that glow in the man’s eyes, and again he wondered, to no avail, if it came from some dojutsu that he should have known about but had long since forgotten. Shiu never decided on whether he should ask or not, because soon the swordsman brought his hands together then vanished out of view. He narrowed his eyes at the space where the man once had stood, unsure of what he meant by saying he was going to dumb it down.

He was vaguely aware that if there was truth in what the stranger had said, he was already under the genjutsu. Shiu cast his eyes down where he heard the sound of earth breaking. Before he could think to move, thick layers of wood shot up from the cracking ground, groaning as it twisted and enveloped all but his arms. It made his body uncomfortably stiff, but when he tried to shift his weight to one side, he found there was no give whatsoever. He was stuck, with the sensation of slightly damp sapwood scratching against the exposed skin of his neck and locking it in place.

He was not afraid, per se, but his inability to move fired an instinct within him to struggle and get out. It was a dangerous, disempowered thing to have no control over one’s body, and he felt that with every small adjustment he tried to make with his torso and legs, but was completely unable. None of it was real, yet the immobility of his person very much was.

He saw movement. An arm-shaped shadow cast over his face, then expanding as more of the stranger’s body emerged. He saw the glint of the man’s kobun as the arm wrapped around what was exposed of his neck, then the blade was pressed against him.

Shiu was no stranger to close threats. He’d had a kunai or a sword kiss his neck so many times the threat alone of it hardly fazed him. In every other circumstance, though, he’d had the ability to fight back. Even if his limbs were spent and his movements were sluggish, he could make himself wade through the numbing exhaustion if he only pressed against his mind enough. Here, he had all the energy he needed to thrash, but none of the ability to. He was as stuck as he would be if the trunk had actually been there.

He struggled against his instinct to grab the arm and push it away or otherwise restrain it. It took every ounce of his willpower to hold the ram seal in place. The purpose of him doing this in the first place was lost on him in the moment. There was only the vague knowing that he was meant to hold it, and the stubborn need to look dignified even as he was completely at the mercy of another.

Shiu tilted his chin up as much as his circumstances allowed. He kept his eyes looking down, but the shapes of his own face obscured the threat to him, leaving the sight of the kobun to be nothing more than a bleary smear against the corners of his vision, and even then that may have been his imagination. Logically, he knew the tree was not real. Wood release existed, but even if the swordsman was some impossibly rare case of a user within the Hidden Mist, Shiu doubted something like this could be done with only a single handseal. That, and the way his body had vanished earlier. It was definitely the work of a genjutsu.

The arm and the blade, though, he was much less certain. When his Adam’s apple bobbed from swallowing his own spit, he felt the cool of metal against his pale skin. If he managed to twist his neck, he might be able to cut the shallowest sliver from the blade into his skin, or if he was quick enough he could reach up and cut his palm, and if the kobun was real, that would break him out of this. If it was not, then he wondered how long this man would wait before making him live the experience of having his throat gutted.

It was enough to remind him of his purpose, why he had consented to subjecting himself to this. Shiu pressed the palms of his hands tighter to distract himself from the tingling warning that came from a knife pressed too close to his flesh. He wrested for control of his expression, keeping his gaze seemingly superficially calm, but there were tells of tension from indents in his cheeks from when his jaw tightened.

He tried to sense out his chakra, but he was distracted. Shiu’s control had advanced beyond many of his age, but that had been to learn the precise outputs needed to enter another’s body with medical ninjutsu. There had never once been a call to halt the flow of his chakra altogether. Pushing was familiar to him. Pulling was as foreign to him as relearning how to walk with his brain hemispheres swapped.

He reached into himself. Without use, the chakra was flowing within him with the unhurried pace of a shallow stream. He tried to grab for it and reel it in, but his grip was slippery, and he only managed a stutter.

Time would pass, and again his thoughts were consumed by the rigid structure of the tree imposed on his body, and the real or unreal blade that was held against his neck. Breaking out of this was going to be much more difficult than he thought.

coded by pinn @ thq

masshiro

[masshiro]

    While he watched Shiu's reaction, he wondered what was going through his mind, as he said so little, even now, not asking for instruction or what was to happen. The fact he hadn't said anything more than what he was going to do was intentional, as was the lacking instructions on how to break out of genjutsu like this, simply curious if Shiu would try and do much of anything but struggle, brute force it like he had with his katana earlier. 

    The knife pupped back eventually as he looked to meld back into the tree, then appeared as if he had always been there, with the blade tip pressing to the side of his temple. It was just enough pressure that it would cause discomfort and remind him it was there.

"You can't force it."

    His words were quiet, as if he could tell what Shiu was trying to do.

"Your hands should be feeling tired, what start there, focus your chakra into your hands."

    Whether he did so or not wasn't the point, now he just wanted to see if he would listen, or even try. The longer he held his arms up the more lactic acid would build up in his muscles, the fatigue setting in, a bit of tightness. This was he learned to tether himself at first, to focus on what was real, to feel that fatigue and start from there.

"Once you do, remember, genjutsu is in the mind, it's chakra disrupting the flow in your brain."

    Tapping the blade against his temple he pulled it back, now wanting him to fully focus. His presence wasn't a necessary part of this genjutsu now, but the tree wasn't going anywhere, and neither was Shiu for now.
    
"Think of this technique as a way to move your chakra to find that intrusion and expelling it."

[Kuronmeru Shiu]

♔

Shiu felt the absence of pressure against his neck, no longer saw anything of the stranger’s body, and for a moment, he almost relaxed. It was impossible to have any real privacy from the man that had and was actively casting a genjutsu on him, but so long as he couldn’t see him, Shiu had a chance of at least pretending.

This didn’t last long, because the moment he considered trying to coax himself back into a state of pure, self-awareness, the man was pressing that stupid knife of his back against his temple.

Shiu closed his eyes and sighed deeply through his nose, his fluttering eyelids betraying his frustration. If there was any trepidation remaining in him about whether the swordsman would decide to use that blade against him, it was greatly overshadowed by just how much of a nuisance it was that he kept making these empty threats.

The presence of the knife tip buzzed against his temple as the man spoke. His arms were beginning to feel tired. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been made to simply be put in a pose for so long. Shiu didn’t understand the purpose of focusing his chakra in his hands when he was meant to stop the flow altogether, but for the moment he would listen, and try to parse out reason as he did so.

It was a little more difficult than what was normal, when he usually built his chakra to produce an ice senbon or to cauterize skin. The burning of fatigue from holding his arms still was different from the burning that came from exertion. It felt as if the chakra he sent to his hands were being funneled through a narrow channel, but even slower than it had been before, he steadily trickled chakra through his arms and up to his palms.

That same chakra fell back, as though he had dropped something from his hands, the moment the swordsman tapped the kobun against his head, breaking his concentration. Shiu’s lips twitched with his rising agitation. It wasn’t enough that he’d been rendered immobile by this stupid genjutsu, but the man had to keep egging him on with his incessant poking and prodding. The words he spoke were calm and quiet, but he kept breaking his instruction with these unnecessary taunts. The sporadic nature of them, too, was getting under his skin.

After the stranger retreated, Shiu waited a while, anticipating that he’d pop up again to poke him in some new spot. When it seemed as though the swordsman was going to give him the space he needed, Shiu set to focusing on the exercise at hand. Again.

As he built his chakra within his hands once more, he tried to connect what the swordsman had said to create meaning. He wanted him to focus his chakra in his hands. It was the same as trying to concentrate for walking on walls, only a different part of his body, and the very strong urge to put his arms down and stop. The nerves in his arms were beginning to prickle, tempting the limb to go to sleep. This was somehow supposed to translate to the disruption in his head that was creating this illusion to begin with. Did that mean he needed to focus his chakra in his head? Then why even ask him to start with his hands? And why tell him to hold this stance?

Shiu tried to make a small adjustment to make his body a little more comfortable where it was, but his shoulder was stopped by the imposing bark of the illusory tree pressing against him. Again, his lips twitched in anger as, yet again, his concentration broke.

coded by pinn @ thq

masshiro

[masshiro]

    It was hard to know what was a larger difference in style; between Toru trying to teach him or him trying to teach Shiu. If he had to guess, Shiu and Toru would most certainly mesh better together, plus they were closer to age, and no doubt Shiu would give him more respect. The problem was, Shiu didn't respect Masshiro, and he didn't care one way or another how the genin felt towards him, so that was causing problems before whatever this was even started. Masshiro had far less patience than either all the same, even if he was good at hiding that fact for the most part, but when it slipped out, it slipped out in a big way. Shiu surely had a worse temper however, which they had both already experienced, and he could only assume it was a matter of time before that got one or both of them in trouble or in an actual fight.

    For now, Shiu was holding things in and Masshiro was doing well enough trying to share what knowledge he could, but he was far from a great teacher. It didn't stop him from trying, forcing the point across if he had to, as it was the only way he knew how to do things on the fly; through force. Pulling away from Shiu again, he watched, and he kept silent, letting him feel that muscle fatigue just a bit longer, watching the look on Shiu's face, trying not to break into a grin.

"You have to focus, I can see that look you give every time I talk, every time my weapon makes contact. Do you think someone is going to sit back and let you focus, slow your breathing, concentrate in the middle of a battle? They will be driving a blade into you. You have to block it out and hold your emotions."

    Spinning the blade, he slipped it into his belt and stepped closer, looking for the signs of further fatigue in his arms being held in that same position.

"Right about now you can feel your shoulder muscles wanting to relax, the slightest lack of blood flow in your fingertips. By now that's where your focus has been, and forcing your chakra there has, whether you realized it or not, only made it worse slowly. When you are caught in a genjutsu, you need to focus on a point, focus on something you know is real, and start from there. That slight prickling pain from your hands going numb, feel it."

    Putting a hand on Shiu's arm, he pushed down, not with much force, but as if he was trying to get him to lower his arms finally.

"You'll have to learn to do this in the moment, do it differently, find your own focus but this is the easiest way to start. Now, force your chakra to that spot in your mind, you'll feel it even if you don't realize it do at first, and flood it with chakra then regain your mind's chakra flow. It's your mind, your chakra being disrupted. Imagine you are expelling that foreign chakra and release."