The Princess of Blades (Naruto/Exalted)

[Crow]

[X] uju32

 

[Yog]

[X] Take the lead. Explain this. Oh god how do you explain this?
- [X] Just tell him what happened.

 

[Diceart]

Changing my vote
[X] Take the lead. Explain this. Oh god how do you explain this?
-[X] Focus on how Kin really needs someone to be there for her right now.
---[X]Stunt: Spend 1 WP for an autosux + 1 Compassion channel
You open your mouth to talk, and close it again. How much of what you are talking of do you have actual evidence for?
The entire Sound reaction to Dosu's death is off, and Kin is terrified in a way that makes you itch, but there's little hard evidence, just implications.
Keep to what you can prove. Sensei does not need everything spelled out for him."Can we speak out of sight of the road, sensei? This might take a while."

 

[Corvus 501]

[X] Take the lead. Explain this. Oh god how do you explain this?
-[X] Focus on how Kin really needs someone to be there for her right now.
---[X]Stunt: Spend 1 WP for a Compassion channel
You open your mouth to talk, and close it again. How much of what you are talking of do you have actual evidence for?
The entire Sound reaction to Dosu's death is off, and Kin is terrified in a way that makes you itch, but there's little hard evidence, just implications.
Keep to what you can prove. Sensei does not need everything spelled out for him."Can we speak out of sight of the road, sensei? This might take a while."

 

[KnightDisciple]

Updating my vote.

[X] Take the lead. Explain this. Oh god how do you explain this?
-[X] Focus on how Kin really needs someone to be there for her right now.
---[X]Stunt: Spend 1 WP for an autosux + 1 Compassion channel
You open your mouth to talk, and close it again. How much of what you are talking of do you have actual evidence for?
The entire Sound reaction to Dosu's death is off, and Kin is terrified in a way that makes you itch, but there's little hard evidence, just implications.
Keep to what you can prove. Sensei does not need everything spelled out for him."Can we speak out of sight of the road, sensei? This might take a while."

 

[wingstrike96]

[X] Take the lead. Explain this. Oh god how do you explain this?
-[X] Focus on how Kin really needs someone to be there for her right now.
---[X]Stunt: Spend 1 WP for a Compassion channel
You open your mouth to talk, and close it again. How much of what you are talking of do you have actual evidence for?
The entire Sound reaction to Dosu's death is off, and Kin is terrified in a way that makes you itch, but there's little hard evidence, just implications.
Keep to what you can prove. Sensei does not need everything spelled out for him."Can we speak out of sight of the road, sensei? This might take a while."

 

[QTesseract]

[X] Take the lead. Explain this. Oh god how do you explain this?
- [X] Just tell him what happened.
- [X] "To be honest...I think she could really use some advice from someone who cares about her well-being, and not just what she can do for them."

 

[Demonlorddraco91]

[X] Take the lead. Explain this. Oh god how do you explain this?
-[X] Focus on how Kin really needs someone to be there for her right now.
---[X]Stunt: Spend 1 WP for a Compassion channel
You open your mouth to talk, and close it again. How much of what you are talking of do you have actual evidence for?
The entire Sound reaction to Dosu's death is off, and Kin is terrified in a way that makes you itch, but there's little hard evidence, just implications.
Keep to what you can prove. Sensei does not need everything spelled out for him."Can we speak out of sight of the road, sensei? This might take a while."

 

[Twei]

I randomly felt like throwing proofreading/editing/poking! Just looked all the way back at the very first post for now, but I'm probably going to do a lot more at some point. I'm posting this now because said lot more will probably take ages.


Paaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaages.

Red is errors, orange is more suggestions/subjective which I might have every once in a while. Unless it's Solar Orange. I should probably get a separate color for adding or removing words. Might do that at some point.

Also I can totally put this in spoilar tag if people want but for now, not-spoilers

You were good, but you weren't some natural prodigy, to seek out and befriend as a course of natural survival. You had good marks, but nowhere the near the best. Even after all this time, you were still just...Tenten.

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You feel the wind around you begin to relent, and you gasp for air as you begin the fall back to earth. You try and steady yourself as you tumble through air, but your eyes are still bleary and tear-filled, robbing you of all sense of orientation.

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Then, with a wet, visceral crack, the pain vanishes. Everything beneath your lower back vanishes. Your vision swims, and once again you have to fight off the encroaching darkness. You force through a wet cough, sending the blood in your mouth spilling out across your face. Your vision finally achieves some measure of clarity, but all you see through half-lidded eyes is the sand bitch's expression of bored disdain.

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"Oh, and here I was expecting some excitement after the show your teammate put on," she drawls, and the raw contempt in her voice makes your skin crawl. Fury pushes through the aching dizziness. "Oh well. That was pitiful."

"Not...not done yet," you force out through gritted teeth.

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Your mouth tastes like dust and blood, and you can feel something warm trickling down your face. Your legs refuse to move, a fact that sends cold shivers of dread throughout your body. But still you force yourself to rise on shuddering arms. You can see the blood drops beginning to coalesce beneath you, but you don't care. You're not out of this yet, not as long as you're still conscious.

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"Well, that's just pathetic." You can practically hear the sneer in her voice as you struggle to lift your head to look at her with half-lidded eyes. Everything in you screams to just give up now. You can barely move, let alone fight. She took the best you had, and you couldn't even hit her. But you push it down. You're running on anger and spite at this point. You refuse to give up, not after the way she dismissed you, not after what her brother did to Lee. If she wants to win, she's going to have to put you down.

"N-not giving up y-yet," you spit out, to yourself and to her, and your fingers close around one of the kunai knives littering the floor.

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The impact jars all the air from your lungs, and as you slump to the ground beneath a spiderweb of cracks, your vision once again swims from the force of it all. Black spots weave in and out of your sight as everything swings around you. You suck a breath in through your teeth and try to move your arms, only to seize up at the pain lancing through them when you so much as move your fingers. As the dust swirls around you and bits of concrete rain down from the cracks above you, you feel the last embers of defiance settle in your stomach. You did it, you hit her...Now what?

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You're exhausted, you can feel cuts and gashes all over your body, slowly spilling your life out onto the stone floor. You're pretty sure your spine is broken, probably some other things as well. It'd be so easy to just put your head down and slide into the darkness that's been tugging on you ever since you were caught in that vortex. Now look at you, you can barely move and you're backed into a corner. Just waiting to be finished off.

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You feel your blood pounding in your ears as you grind your knuckles into the stone floor, pushing yourself up inch by excruciating inch. The fire from before roars back to life inside you. You sway slightly as you rise onto your feet, shards of concrete dust falling off you, the pain lancing through your body gradually giving way to the fire burning through your veins. Idly you grab a kunai from where it had fallen on the ground, twirling it through your fingers.

Click to shrink...

"So." Your face twists into a sneer. "It was a fight you wanted, right?"

Click to shrink...

General rules for punctuation with regard to dialogue, btw: Use commas if the words outside the quotation marks are... I'm sure there's a word for it. Said, shouted, other dialogue/speech tags. If you've got those, then use the comma. Otherwise, use periods. If in doubt ( like if the words describe the speech but aren't actually ' "Blah blah blah", he said', or if you're not really sure), use periods.

Also, at least in this very first post (so far), I feel like you have the tendency to use weird... sentence flow? The sentences stop and start at funky times, and it might be a stylistic thing but it mostly comes off as odd.

 

[Crilltic]

Also, at least in this very first post (so far), I feel like you have the tendency to use weird... sentence flow? The sentences stop and start at funky times, and it might be a stylistic thing but it mostly comes off as odd.

Click to shrink...

Yes, I've noticed this in my writing, though I'm not sure how much is just how I naturally write and how much is because I don't edit anything before I post it.

Though, thanks for taking the time to do this. I really appreciate it.

Anyway, for everyone else, updates are taking a bit longer to write than expected. Likely will do a double update at some point soon to just get the week wrapped up as I plan out how to do the next week.

 

[Twei]

Though, thanks for taking the time to do this. I really appreciate it.

Click to shrink...

No problem! I really like this quest, even if I barely know anything about Naruto. Like, Tenten, Temari and Gai were all 'literally who is this', and with the former, I'm still wondering why she in particular gets to be a Solar. Not that I'm not okay with it, but that can't be the only moment someone struggles against overwhelming odds like a baws, surely. Right? ...

Well, I really have no idea.

Also, I recommend giving things an editing pass, if you've got the time. Or if you're really luxurious, getting a proofreader/editor/betareader. There are many of levels of (peer) review. Most things can be proofread, and then edited a little, and then edited a lot, and then analyzed to death and made to polish at maximum perfection. I'm guessing that you're probably not going to go for one of those last ones. But a little editing, or a few fresh eyes on the work, can go a pretty long way.

Anyways!

Proofreading II: the proofening.

Red for errors (grammar, spelling, punctuation, anything else I didn't list). Yellow for adding or removing words. Green for random suggestions/stylistic things. (Mostly adding italics, as it turns out?) I may or may not actually keep a consistent text color.

Also I might have to go back and re-poke some of these if I decide to seriously stare at your paragraph structure, or something like that. Or if I just find something i missed.

(also augh, spoilers and quotes interact oddly. I maybe should move them both into one spoiler. Or make absolutely sure all the quotes fit within the quote box without expanding, but what the heck ever.)

Spoiler: Prologue II: The Proofening: Attack of the Edits

General advice: I recommend breaking up a lot of text walls. Text walls have their place, but that place is sparingly, particularly when it just makes sense to break them up. And short, sharp paragraphs can be pretty strong.

With a sudden burst of speed, one of the small shards of concrete still on your clothes is in your hand, and then it's hurtling towards her eyes. You're vaguely aware of her eyes widening to track it, but you pay no attention to that.

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a note: mostly I've been okay with the "Adverb you blah blah blah" structure, even though I don't think it's even remotely correct? It's honestly more interesting than actually putting the adverb where it should go most of the time, though I do think you could do with a comma between the adverb and the (pro)noun. But this time, it was not so.

Also, commas are a thing. Sometimes, it's hard to decide how many commas you need.

You can feel the cutting edge of the scything wind brush against your skin as you slam your hands together in familiar hand-signs, products of years of rote memorization. All your attention is on the heavy kusarigama behind her. Your chakra sings in your ears, far stronger than you've ever felt before.

Click to shrink...

Two more knives lash out, but they are merely batted way by the wind. You let out a small grunt of annoyance, but it quickly disappears as you spot the dark patch on her shoulder. So you did hit her, and given the way her shoulder hitches when she moves it, it was a clean hit.

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You, on the other hand, are forced to turn your dismount into a handspring to keep from slamming head-first into the floor. You whip through the air as your opponent spins around once more, desperately trying to keep track of you. You're not entirely sure how you're doing this, but you're too focused to question it, all your thoughts whirling through you second-by-second. At the apex of your arc, you let loose another pair of knives. You see the blonde girl's eyes bulge as she throws herself to the side, lacking the time to bring her fan to bear. But it's not enough. The second of your knives misses her by inches, but the first slices across her stomach. You see her shirt tear open, blood beginning to well up through the cut.

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technically you could probably use a semicolon instead of a period for 'But it's not enough. The [...]'. But you know what? Fuck semicolons. They're weird.

With a scream, her fan extends to its full form and another vortex reaches out to claim you in its grasp, but you spin out of the way, weapons flashing from the ground into your hands, and the dance begins again.

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As you twirl out of the way of yet another wind-blast, you realize you are in a stalemate. You're too fast for her to hit, but with the winds whipping around her there's no chance for any of your weapons to get through. She's spending chakra like water in her fury, aiming to squash you like a bug, so you could try and wait her out, but if she hits you...you grit your teeth as the edge of one of the blasts of wind clips you, sending you skidding backwards.

Click to shrink...

I can't decide whether I like the phrase 'spending chakra like water' or not.

It's not nearly as big as many of its kind, but for what you need it for, it will do.

Click to shrink...

There are actually two ways to fix this. You could fix the punctuation, but the phrasing itself is a bit awkward and long-winded, so you could instead cut it down a bit in size:

It's not nearly as big as many of its kind, but for what you need, it will do.

Click to shrink...

Frantically, she moves the heavy steel casing on her fan in front of her to block your knife, and the two weapons collide in a shower of sparks, locking together as the sound of metal grinding against metal fills the air around you.
(paragraph break)
"Gotcha," you spit out through gritted teeth. Your heart hammers in your chest. This is it. You throw your entire body weight down on your knife, twisting yourself into her guard. You feel her shoulder catch, and she screams in pain as the fan is forced from her grasp in a shower of sparks.

Click to shrink...

While it wasn't something I could just point to and say 'here is the error, here is the solution', you used 'in a shower of sparks' twice in a relatively short time in this paragraph. The repetition caught my eye, but I'm not sure what to replace one of those with.

Also, you should generally not start a new dialogue segment in the middle of a paragraph. If you move in and out of dialogue once or twice towards the beginning or the end of a larger non-dialogue paragraph, that's alright. Having dialogue at the beginning and the end is definitely not okay, and having it in the middle is probably definitely not okay.

You have no weapons left on, but that's fine. This ends now. Your hand curls into a fist as you whip around. No time for form or finesse, just raw power. You see a fleeting moment of absolute terror on the blonde girl's face before your fist connects with the side of her jaw. You feel something give way before your hand, and a visceral snap rings out as the girl is sent tumbling backwards, blood pouring from her mouth. She crumples to the ground, landing on top of her fan. She shifts a handful of times, breath gurgling through the blood in her mouth, before her head lolls to the side. You merely stand there sucking in air while you wait to see if she's truly down for the count. Eventually, the referee wanders over, and looks her up and down before shrugging his shoulder.

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The comma after 'mouth' might seem unnecessary, but it makes it more obvious that 'breath gurgling [...]' is modifying 'shifts a handful of times' rather than being attached to 'before her head [...]'. I mean, those first two are attached to the third, but there's a hierarchy there or something.

I don't think that last comma I added was strictly needed, but the sentence kind of flows weirdly without it. Too many different phrases/sentence parts in quick succession, if that makes any sense.

"Winner: Tenten," he drawls out, and a tidal wave of relief washes over you. You did it, you won.
(paragraph break)
You won.
(paragraph break)
You hear cheering from the viewing platforms and you look up to see the other Konoha genin waving to you...well, you see most of them...some of them...okay, two or three are actually waving, but in your mind they're all cheering for you. Unfortunately you don't see Guy among them, but you try to push down the stab of disappointment. Last time you saw him he was rushing Lee to emergency surgery, and that was all of a half an hour ago. But the thought of Lee snaps you back to your opponent. She's still lying there on the ground, and as you glance at her she lets out a wet cough, sending a spray of blood out of her mouth.

Click to shrink...

[ ] Go over and make sure she's okay - She may be a complete bitch, and the sister of that monster that tried to murder Lee, but you're better than her. And you want her to know you're better than her.

Click to shrink...

i'm in ur votes, fixin ur spellin

Spoiler: Prologue III: This Time, It's Personal (Taste)

foreword: oh hey, invisitext. didn't see you there before!

You sigh. You can't just leave her there, no matter how much of a bitch she might be. You don't want her to die, especially now that the battle rush is dying down. You let out a deep breath and walk over to the blonde girl...what was her name again? Tem-something...Temalla...Temalli...Temari...Temari, that was it. As you stand over her, she lets out another wracking cough, sending a spray of blood out over her upper chest.

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"Hey." Her face contorts into a scowl. "That was a good match." She opens her mouth to say something, but between the blood and the broken jaw, what comes out is too garbled to understand. You hazard a guess it was something insulting though. Despite this, you're still set on your plan of being the better woman, so you extend her your hand. She just stares at it, disbelief clear on her face. You roll your eyes; is she really doing this?

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Remember how I said semicolons are weird? Well, they're still weird, but I used one anyways. Not sorry. Honestly, the way you write kind of lends itself to using semicolons instead of splitting off some of the tinier sentences. (Remember: Semicolons are basically replacement periods. Essentially, when you have two complete sentences but want to pretend that they're one complete sentence, use a semicolon.)

She's lighter than you would have expected, and you're able to get her up on her feet with only a hiss of pain on her part...or, well, at least until her feet almost collapse out from under her, forcing you to shoulder most of her weight.

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"'Or...tem..." you hear her garble out. "Toshal...'ullshi." And you suppress a smirk.

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"You were really good as well," you grunt out. "We just don't know when to quit." But that only reminds you of Lee's match with her brother, and you feel something inside you harden as you hand her over to the medical-nins. Temari wobbles slightly when you let go of her, but manages to stay on her feet.
(paragraph break)
"Pretty sure her jaw is broken, definitely hit her with two kunai, possible concussion," you rattle off to the medic on the right, who just nods as the two lead the blonde girl off.

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You spare yourself a smile; that went better than you had expected. You doubt she'd have extended you the same courtesy if the positions were switched, but then, that was basically why you did it. Plus, if she had choked on her own blood or something, you probably would have felt terrible afterwards. But she didn't, and who knows? Maybe she'll be less of a bitch the next time you see her.
(paragraph break)
You stifle a yawn, the first hints of lethargy starting to creep into your limbs now that the adrenaline from the fight is staring to fade away. That fight really took a lot out of you, you feel like you should probably go lie down somewhere. Hey, is that the floor? It looks like it's getting clo-...
(paragraph break)
...
(paragraph break)
When your eyes flutter open, the first thing you notice is the soft beams of late afternoon light stretching through a window to your right. The second thing you notice is that very particular type of scratchy, uncomfortable sheets that every shinobi in Konoha eventually has seared into their minds.
(paragraph break?)
Scratchy sheets that mean you can only be one place.
(paragraph break)
You lever yourself up onto your elbows to look around the hospital room you're currently situated in, and scowl.

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Walls of text have their place, but I feel like this section in particular could use a bit of breaking up, along with a dramatic pause when Tenten passes out. Ironically, that only made the quote box so much larger.

also that last comma totally makes sense, she didn't lever herself up in order to scowl, don't judge me

"What happened?" You groan, rubbing your head. "I remember finishing the fight, and helping my opponent but then..." you trail off.

The nurse shrugs. "All we were told is you had collapsed. It was strange really, by every measure you are in perfect health. Oh, and you've stopped glowing."

You quirk an eyebrow. "Glowing?"

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She nods. "Yes, what appeared to be raw golden chakra forming a mark over your brow, shining through your headband. And more forming an aura around you, though that was already fading by the time you got here. Though, it wasn't like any chakra I've ever seen." She picks up a clipboard at the foot of your bed. "You caused quite the stir, young lady."

Click to shrink...

It's the nurse's turn to quirk an eyebrow. "I take it from that you didn't know that was happening?"

You shake your head. "No I-..." You mentally run over your memories of the fight, for a time when you noticed you were glowing or...something. "No."

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"Mmm." The nurse just makes a noncommittal noise as she marks something down on the clipboard. "Well, this will likely require for some further tests, but considering you're otherwise in perfect health, those can be scheduled for another time during the break period in the exams."

Click to shrink...

Spines don't just heal themselves. You know enough medicine to know that.

Click to shrink...

Unfortunately, that is the only thing you can conclude, because at that moment the door to your room explodes inward. You almost jump out of your skin as you try to get into something resembling a fighting stance and shards of wood scatter around you. Your mind quickly runs down the who could possibly be bold enough to attack you in the hospit- "MY YOUTHFUL PUPIL! I CAME AS SOON AS I HEARD!"

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oh

oh no

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this is perfect, never change

"Congratulations Tenten!" His booming voice softens to something approaching a normal tone. "I hear you won you preliminary match, just as I knew you would!"

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You rub the back of your head. "I guess, though...something odd happened." When he cocks his head, and you continue, filling him in on the events of the the battle and what you think happened. "So...I'm pretty sure something happened when I slammed into the wall...but..." You trail off as your mentor strokes his chin.

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"Well, Tenten. It sounds like to me that you finally managed to surpass your limits! To find the true spirit of youth locked within you!" He says with a flourish, and a smile.

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"Um...okay." You decide to let it slide. "But what about the specifics? Have you heard of golden chakra before?"

Your mentor just scratches his chin. "Not as such no, but I know a fool-proof method for uncovering this mystery!"

Click to shrink...

"Vigorous training?" you sigh.

"Vigorous Training!" he says, completely unhindered. "It would of course be easier if I had been there to observe your match, which is also why I am here. I must apologize for missing your matc-"

Click to shrink...

BIG CITATION NEEDED ON THIS ONE. I'm not positive, but I think that when you have a dialogue segment that ends with an exclamation or question mark, you can pretend it's a comma if you have one of the aforementioned dialogue tag things afterwards.

You wave him off. "Don't worry about it Sensei, it was more important that you got Lee to the hospital as fast as possible." A moment of silence passes between you two. "How is he...Lee I mean." You see a shadow pass over your teacher's face.

"He..." Gai seems to hesitate for a split second. "...is strong. They were able to save the limbs, but they don't know if he will ever be able to walk again. But I believe that Lee will triumph over this!"

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You laugh, trying to inject some levity into the moment. "Yeah, like Lee would ever let some injury keep him down like that. I'm sure he'll be back to normal in no time at all!" Internally, you're not so sure, but you decide you've got to have confidence in your teammate.

Gai just gives you another smile. "Exactly what I said! Right now they have him on sedatives from the surgery, but when he wakes up I expect you to visit him!"

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"None of that now," he says with a wave of his hand. "Gai, I wish to speak with your student here in private."

Click to shrink...

Gai bows again. "Yes, of course Hokage! I was just leaving actually." He turns back to you. "Tenten! I expect you on the training field bright and early tomorrow! Now that you are in the Exam finals, it is time for the real training to begin!" As he leaves you with one final smile and thumbs up, you feel the blood drain from your face.

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He waves your question away. "Oh nothing, just thinking of one of your peers." He puffs on his pipe. "Your preliminary match was quite the spectacle, wasn't it?"

Click to shrink...

I'd personally replace one of these 'he's with a noun. 'The Hokage', perhaps. And I also might break up the paragraph after the first dialogue thing, but then you'd want to vary them up even more. Having two separate tags from the same speaker without a bit more of a beat in between can be a little awkward, yeah?

He gives a snort. "Of course! I always watch the fights, it is always so interesting seeing how the our next generation is developing in their skills." Oh...that makes sense. "But your match, well...it peaked an old man's curiosity. So I decided to come down and see the one responsible myself. Unofficially of course."

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"Right...of course." You take a deep breath. "Hokage sir, do you have any idea what happened? What that all was?"

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The old man gives you a paternal smile. "Yes, actually. I know exactly what that was." He scratches his wizened beard and you feel hope blossom in your chest.
(paragraph break)
"It was something you need to find out for yourself."

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But the Hokage just chortles. "You've obviously been given a gift, but discovering what it is on your own will teach you far more about it than me just telling you the answer."

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You feel your mouth open to say something, then close it, then open it again. "That sounds like-"

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"Like the advice a wise old man would give to a young student, still learning the ways of life?" the Hokage finishes.

...

"Yes."

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"Well, I was trying to be as vague as possible, but I guess such things just come naturally to old men like me." You briefly feel a vein throb somewhere in your forehead. "But!" He holds up a finger. "Now I'm afraid I must take my leave. It was good to meet you Tenten, I will be watching how you grow with great interest."
(paragraph break)
You gulp.

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The Hokage gives you a smile, one you think you detect a hint of melancholy in. "As long as you follow what your Jounin-sensei taught you, and remember the Will of Fire, I'm sure there will be no chance of that happening."
(paragraph break)
And with that you are left alone in your hospital room. The hospital room with a completely destroyed door. Yes, you think it is time for you to leave.

Click to shrink...

 

[Crilltic]

No problem! I really like this quest, even if I barely know anything about Naruto. Like, Tenten, Temari and Gai were all 'literally who is this', and with the former, I'm still wondering why she in particular gets to be a Solar. Not that I'm not okay with it, but that can't be the only moment someone struggles against overwhelming odds like a baws, surely. Right? ...

Well, I really have no idea.

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It's a shounen series, it's safe to assume everyone does that constantly. As for why Tenten, it's because I love the character and especially like working with minor characters who didn't get much spotlight in the main series.

 

[Jorlem]

@Crilltic, just wondering, are you following the Naruto reread over on SB? Because they just covered a bit of the Chunin Exam that had a pretty nice feat for Sakura:

Spoiler: Image

Naruto's down for the count, and we get an interesting hint about the nature of his seal. Then Sakura saves Naruto from falling dozens of feet to the forest floor by pinning him to a tree by his clothes with a thrown kunai.

What the hell kind of throwing arm does Sakura have?

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Given that we as Tenten think that her Taijutsu skills "need serious work", I think this really gives some perspective as to what having five dots in Thrown actually means.

 

[Crilltic]

@Crilltic,Given that we as Tenten think that her Taijutsu skills "need serious work", I think this really gives some perspective as to what having five dots in Thrown actually means.

Click to shrink...

A Five in Thrown is Tenten's canon feat of "Hitting bullseyes on several moving, intermittently visible, targets 150 feet away while swinging upside down from her ankles"

Or the Itachi sequence where he falls past targets and hits kunai into other kunai to get bullseyes.

 

[Jorlem]

A Five in Thrown is Tenten's canon feat of "Hitting bullseyes on several moving, intermittently visible, targets 150 feet away while swinging upside down from her ankles"

Or the Itachi sequence where he falls past targets and hits kunai into other kunai to get bullseyes.

Click to shrink...

I know. I just think it gives a different feel,comparing to Sakura, who we see do something impressive (pinning Naruto to a tree with a thrown kunai right after shaking off being paralyzed by sheer terror from Orochimaru's killing intent) and is later judged as severely lacking compared to us, and being told that we can hit a large number of targets during training, in a position that increases the difficulty.

 

[fictionfan]

I know. I just think it gives a different feel,comparing to Sakura, who we see do something impressive (pinning Naruto to a tree with a thrown kunai right after shaking off being paralyzed by sheer terror from Orochimaru's killing intent) and is later judged as severely lacking compared to us, and being told that we can hit a large number of targets during training, in a position that increases the difficulty.

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The problem is that I don't think a thrown kunai has ever seriously injured someone in all of Naruto.

I will admit that I just made a big claim without much research.

 

[random_npc]

bladed weapons have a pretty poor record in shonen in general. People know that blades hurt, and can instinctively grasp about how bad a pointy piece of metal going into someone would be. So seeing it shrugged off strains the belief more than someone who stays standing after taking a hit from a swirly energy thing or a punch, even if that fist was just seen going through steel and that swirly energy thing was shown to level a forest.

 

[uju32]

The problem is that I don't think a thrown kunai has ever seriously injured someone in all of Naruto.
I will admit that I just made a big claim without much research.

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What @random_npc said.

Minato Namikaze was notorious for slaughtering even jounin with a kunai, and Obito/Tobi respected that skill enough to phase rather than block his thrown kunai. Killer B and Kakashi both used thrown kunai/throwing implements imbued with Lightning as distance weapons.
Chiyo used levitating kunai, and kunai launchers were standard on Sasori's puppets.

Just flashier to murk major characters with ninjutsu; it's a shonen after all.

 

[Jorlem]

The problem is that I don't think a thrown kunai has ever seriously injured someone in all of Naruto.

I will admit that I just made a big claim without much research.

Click to shrink...

When did I say anything about kunai injuring anyone? The feat I brought up was Sakura nailing Naruto to a tree by pinning his clothes with a single thrown kunai, after Orochimaru knocked him out and threw him off the giant snake's head.

 

[Crilltic]

I know. I just think it gives a different feel,comparing to Sakura, who we see do something impressive (pinning Naruto to a tree with a thrown kunai right after shaking off being paralyzed by sheer terror from Orochimaru's killing intent) and is later judged as severely lacking compared to us, and being told that we can hit a large number of targets during training, in a position that increases the difficulty.

Click to shrink...

I feel I should also point out that Tenten was also talking about Sakura's Taijutsu. (Which you should also remember what her points of comparison are ) She hasn't had a chance to give an opinion on her throwing skills.

 

[Jorlem]

I feel I should also point out that Tenten was also talking about Sakura's Taijutsu. (Which you should also remember what her points of comparison are ) She hasn't had a chance to give an opinion on her throwing skills.

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Huh. I thought that throwing weapons would fall under Taijutsu. It doesn't require chakra like ninjutsu and genjutsu, after all, just stamina.

 

[Crilltic]

Huh. I thought that throwing weapons would fall under Taijutsu. It doesn't require chakra like ninjutsu and genjutsu, after all, just stamina.

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Nah, Shurikenjutsu is its own separate thing.

 

[chocolote12]

Huh. I thought that throwing weapons would fall under Taijutsu. It doesn't require chakra like ninjutsu and genjutsu, after all, just stamina.

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No? You can totally use Jutsu with your thrown weapons, and if you aren't using chakra for everything ninja related then you simply aren't ninja-ing hard enough. Even Lee uses chakra to enhance his Taijutsu.

 

[veekie]

Huh. I thought that throwing weapons would fall under Taijutsu. It doesn't require chakra like ninjutsu and genjutsu, after all, just stamina.

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Taijutsu is basically unarmed. It's literally Body-Techniques. Same as how Kenjutsu is Sword Techniques and Shurikenjutsu is Throwing-techniques.

Sakura would do a lot better if it was no-holds-barred sparring of course. But Tenten is primary combat like all of her team, while Sakura is more focused on covering the 'soft' skills the rest of her team has zero of. If you wanted to give Tenten a challenge, allow Sakura to use all tools while limiting Tenten to Taijutsu.

She'd surprise you.

 

[Baughn]

Taijutsu is basically unarmed. It's literally Body-Techniques. Same as how Kenjutsu is Sword Techniques and Shurikenjutsu is Throwing-techniques.

Sakura would do a lot better if it was no-holds-barred sparring of course. But Tenten is primary combat like all of her team, while Sakura is more focused on covering the 'soft' skills the rest of her team has zero of. If you wanted to give Tenten a challenge, allow Sakura to use all tools while limiting Tenten to Taijutsu.

She'd surprise you.

Click to shrink...

I mean, Tenten is a Dawn-caste Solar, so she'd probably win. They tend to do that, if you don't give them impossible problems.

But I can see it in my mind. Tenten tries to charge in, and she can't even find Sakura. Every few steps she finds a new trap, making her impossibly paranoid, and after an hour or so she's completely exhausted and starts stepping in them. There ought to be a few genjutsu there, but there aren't... still, given time for preparation, I'd give even odds. That's despite Sakura having a year less experience.

Of course, since Tenten is a Solar, none of the above would actually happen.

Sakura is still one of the most ninja-like characters in the story, however.