[Honō Kusari]

His main objective had been actualized. To turn her massive bulwark into a crematorium, shifting the tree from her protector to a hellish labyrinth to be escaped. Nonetheless, she resisted. Smoke poured out of cracking wood and turned the air unbreathable, but she continued to stand vigilant. Jutsu upon Jutsu, she wove her signs defensively, pouring Chakra into the effort of simply sustaining her defiance.

Foolish."

For a Ninja to not understand the value of a lesson was incomprehensible. The state of her body was ragged- she had to know that better than he did. What was the point to her continued effort. What was worth edging herself closer and closer to collapse? Kusari found himself staring down a defective tool, a Shinobi who neither cared for her own well-being nor understood the dangers that it could bring to herself, her teammates, or in the very worst case scenario, her village as a whole. Kusari could be many things- stubborn, acerbic, and violent chief among them- but he could not simply stand by and let this girl kill herself in the Chunin Exams for pride.

Pride demanded excellence. It meant long days spent perfecting oneself, striving for the best condition, the greatest skills, and superiority to one's enemies. That meant endless hours of study, collecting intelligence, watching, learning- accepting that until one put forth every single ounce of themselves, not a drop of their sweat had value or meaning.

"Katon-" the word fell from his mouth as his hands formed the seal of the Tiger. Chakra flooded his pores, erupting outward. The nature immediately twisted, writhing, fanning out around him, a wicked inferno meant to ignite and immolate anything that came close. His stern gaze wrought like iron in a forge as he met her wooden onslaught head on.

He fed his Chakra to it, and in return, the demon opened its maw to consume. "Yoroi." he uttered the word, but it was consumed by crackling flames, snapping and hissing as the wood style smacked against them. The Mokuton attacks did not simply burn- they began to melt before they could even reach the Kusa-nin.

Sloughing wooden sinew dripped to the ground like wax around him, and he began to walk toward her. Smoke and steam bellowed around him as he blazed a trail toward her, no longer interested in tricks.

"Your body is failing you," he told her, "I could acknowledge all of your efforts, but if I did, you might miss the chance to learn from the experience. Look upon death. Open your heart to your fear, and learn that it is an emotion that can save your life just as surely as it can cripple you."

He stopped walking short of the tree where she held fast, flames and smoke rising toward the sky, a raging, black, red, and gray hell that would surely soon draw attention to them.

"Submit," he told her. "There is no shame in knowing your limits."

SPOILER: Click to show

NAME: 火遁の鎧 | Katon no Yoroi [Fire Release Armor]
RANK: A
CHAKRA USAGE: High [to activate]; Medium [to retain]
CLASSIFICATION: Ninjutsu
ELEMENT: Katon
HANDSEALS: 1
DESCRIPTION:
The user generates a massive amount of fire that envelops their body. Unlike with Lightning Release Armor, this technique doesn't increase the user's speed or strength any, however, their defense radically increases. The heat from the flames can severely burn an attacker, though they don't affect the user any. The flames of this armor are also significant enough to block high-level Water Release techniques, hot enough evaporate high quantities so long as the user exerts the power of the flames. By channeling an immense amount of fire release chakra into one’s attacks, the user is boosts their fists and leg’s stopping power. The enveloping flames can easily melt through wood before the extremities even comes in contact with the target, able to melt stone if the extremities make contact. Furthermore, if an opponent is contacted, their body can be burned due to the flaming current, which leaves behind fire after every attack. When activated the body of the user becomes engulfed in a spiraling flame that extends about 4 inches off of their body. When in use, the spiraling flames can burn an opponent dealing second degree burns if they are within 4 inches of a punch or a kick, able to burned, even if is a near miss. If they are contacted by the extremities themselves, the opponent is dealt the power of the extremity and the flame, which can melt stone on contact and cause third degree burns.

No other technique in this style can be learned unless one knows the Katon no Yoroi.

Senju Minazawa

[Senju Minazawa]

As she launched her greatest attack towards him, the current manifestation of her efforts. It was nothing. For when her wooden columns came before him, her fighting spirit was overwhelmed by the malevolence of his greater fire. For the wooden pillars were consumed, exploded, and snapped, as they were incinerated by the pure heat he radiated, as the grass along his feet smoldered, blackened, and died where he stood. He spoke of pride requiring excellence, and yet, she could never come to acknowledge that. For everyone should...needed something to be proud of. No matter how small the achievement. Otherwise.

Ordinary people would fall into despair and complacency with being mundane. How long had she poured her efforts, to be able to walk? To be able to move. To be able to breath? She found herself coughing hard, her right hand raising to her mouth as she heard him speak. Harshly. Truly. Yet cruel. Her chest convulsing, and feeling as if it was burning, and not just from the smoke of which billowed around her and stung her eyes. Minazawa saw him, and the crimson of which seemed to lick upon his body. He was indeed a demon. Though even he could understand no? 

"If I hch-kgh." She found herself coughing for a few moments, as she held her right hand over her chest, feeling the sharp and piercing pains she was so accustomed to. "If I came to fear something like death...When I've already been on it's door for years. H-Hch! When I know it's coming for me regardless. I would set a boundary. Never excel and thrive." She says, and with it, as she looks down, she could feel a cold sweat coming over her. Not from the flames which warmed around her. She took a few steps towards him, and with it, she had to question. "Or are you saying to accept weakness?"

"Limits...Were meant to be broken. There's more than pride.,.I have to get stronger. Because with the time I have left. There too are things I want to protect."

[Honō Kusari]

"You can protect nothing if you can't first learn to protect yourself."

It seemed like such a simple and mundane concept when he said it. "How will you thrive when you willfully drive your body into the ground? How can you grow when you have to kill yourself just to prove you're alive?"

"Weakness?" Kusari asked. "Is the blade of grass that is blown by the wind weak? It always returns to its natural, calm, inert state, it always continues to grow. When it is burned and dies," he said, the scorched earth beneath his feet emphasizing his words even as his malign aura continued to blacken the dirt, murdering nutrients, drying out soil. "New grass can grow, but it is never that same grass. You say weakness is accepting those limits. Your body disagrees with you, emphatically. Give it the chance to heal. Place more value on the life you have. Grow into someone who is strong."

She spoke like someone who had accepted her fate, and the defiance suddenly made sense. Kusari did not relate to that at all. Strength was something that came from effort, yes, but effort was meaningless if it came from accepting a predetermined fate.

Piss on fate. Grab the reins. Take control back, and steer the direction of your own life, girl.

"You can only do what you can do... for now. What you are capable of given time, and the proper cultivation- only time can tell."

Kusari dropped his Jutsu before she got any closer, having never intended to do her any harm.

"As a Jonin of an allied nation, I cannot knowingly overlook the dangers of allowing you to enter the Exams. Reflect on what your body has told you during this battle, and grow from the experience."

Senju Minazawa

[Senju Minazawa]

How was she supposed to answer that? When he said to let her body heal. In which case, she found herself looking upon him as he spoke, and when he dropped his flame, letting it die into a simmer? She found herself speaking the truth. "I'm dying." She said it truthfully. How many doctors had she sought in Konoha? How many had cut her body open, studied her, and did operation after operation? Her chest littered with scars and incisions. Looking upon him, she really swallowed that. For the first time? She acknowledged her mortality.

A tear spilling down her left eye. Before she coughed hard into her right hand, and slowly looked down at her palm to see the small bit of crimson. "If I sit back, and rest with the time I have left..." She was running out of time. "When I was younger, I thought if I took things slow. Gradually. I'd grow to be a great Shinobi like the legends of old. That I'd live to see a hundred. Now. I know I won't see past twenty." She says it, before looking Kusari in those eyes of his. If he wanted to see her submit. To break her will down. He'd at least partially succeeded in that goal.

"Tell me...If you were in my situation. Where you know unless you sit and idle in a blank room for the rest of your life? Hooked to a machine. You'd die. Would you be able to accept that? Please sir. Tell me that I'm not wrong to try to live. Because if I can't even try to live like this? That. That's too cruel."

[Honō Kusari]

He could see better now, with her ragged breathing and tears beginning to stream down her face. The mask fell away to reveal a fragile girl who had been forced to be strong, grappling with her own short lifespan. He couldn't possibly know her reasons, or what had caused the candle of her life to be prematurely whittled away.

He wouldn't ask, either.

"There are other battles to be fought," he said. "Not with kunai or katana, but in books, through reaching out to other nations for wisdom and innovation. If the Leaf cannot help you, then you must look beyond the constraints of family and friend, and glimpse the world through a larger scope. If your answer is "rail against this unfair fate" with everything you have left, then you will burn through all of it that much faster."

He walked toward his clothes, pulling his loose fitting t-shirt overhead. "Make no mistake, I am not telling you to give up on being a Shinobi- simply not to put the cart before the horse. Take back your life, then conquer the Chunin Exams on even footing. If you die in the pursuit of your dream, then your dream dies with you."

He was direct, perhaps unsympathetic, but there were different kinds of strength. He could see that she had no end of determination. That was a credit to the girl.

Kusari expected more from those around them. He demanded their best effort. Accepting death was inevitable?

There were harder battles yet left to win.

"When I do eventually see you in those exams... I will expect great things."

Senju Minazawa

[Senju Minazawa]

He spoke some measure of truth. However, at the end of it all, her destiny was her own. Taking a deep breath of air, she could feel a sharp pain. As if the pricks in her chest were intensifying, and she could feel the blood building up, as she coughs along the soil her crimson. Her life's blood. The man spoke with a level of confidence that she wouldn't say she didn't admire. His strength was considerable, so much so that the techniques she'd honed were shattered. The tree burned and she was left crouching down, trying to contain her pain. Even this proved to be a great challenge.

As she slumps down along the ashes and feels her body convulse involuntarily at the level of suffering she held. If one looked inside of her chest, they might struggle to find issue, other than perhaps the small tiny holes and signs of inflammation. Minazawa didn't know if those hairs were still dug so deeply into her lungs. Many doctors told her before that it was a strange injury and one of the most difficult ones they've ever had to deal with. For even skilled medical ninja struggled with such an invasive operation. The very fact she lived was a miracle. So she clung onto her life desperately. 

She'd have responded to Kusari, but instead, all she could manage was another series of coughs as she lays along the floor, slowly pinching herself away from the pyre. There had to be a reason why she was alive all this time.  Some purpose or destiny that drew her into this moment.