You think for a second and tuck the kunai away into the scroll on your hip, you won't need it, at least not yet. No, for this you need something with reach, and something that's blunt. Blades would just get in the way of what you're trying to do here. Too hard to strike a middle ground of just holding back that
little bit. You have just the thing for this though, and with a flash of smoke you're spinning a wooden staff in your hands. It's a solid thing, carved from oak, and the only hint that it's more than a slightly longer bo staff were the two metal insets dividing the wood into three pieces. It had cost you more Ryo than you liked to admit, and so you only brought it out for
special occasions. This, however, certainly qualified, and you were going to enjoy this.
You swing it around behind into a resting position behind you arm, the movement kicking up dust in a circle around you as you do so, and cast your gaze on the two girls across from you. They hesitantly share a glance between them, but don't otherwise move. You an arch an eyebrow at them "Well?" You look back and forth between them, "Waiting for me to make the first move then?"
"Well We-" Sakura opens her mouth to say something, but you don't give her to the chance to finish as you lash out, and her eyes go wide as saucers as she frantically ducks to the side. The solid pole of wood and metal just barely grazes the side of her bangs as it whistles through the space her head just occupied.
You kick the other end up, aiming for Ino's knee but she's already moving, jumping back to get out of your reach. "Well, I'm
perfectly happy to seize the initiative if you two won't, but you two
are supposed to be giving me a challenge." You drop down into a guard stance, letting them recover, and motion with your free hand. "Now, let's try that again?"
Ino's the first one to charge at you, and thus she earns the majority of your wrath. Her punch isn't actually that bad, all things considered, but she's tired, and being tired makes you sloppy. If you had to guess she took a fall on her right side earlier today, because she's overcompensating for something. If you were just using taijutsu you might not have been able to take advantage of that. Unfortunately for her you're not just using taijutsu anymore. Your staff lashes out as you step into her charge. Her punch goes wide, redirected by your strike, and then your staff hooks behind her leg and that's that. You step to the side and let her tumble to the ground behind you in a heap.
Sakura isn't far behind, but she's far enough back to give you time to reset your stance. She faster than Ino, and more importantly she's fresh, but in the end it doesn't mean a thing as you staff slams into her gut. Her own momentum works against her, driving the wooden staff into her stomach all the harder, and she falls back with a grunt of pain. You kick the staff upright and lean against it "You two aren't attacking together. You think you can beat me on your own? With just taijutsu Sakura?"
The pink-haired girl just groans again as she pulls herself up.
"Well, I should remind both of you that I'm a weapons expert. My taijutsu skills are just things I practice on the side." You carefully ignore the booming laughter coming from off to the side, and drop back into your combat stance. "So...how's this gonna go?"
Out of the corner of your eye you see something pass between the two of them, a faint nod as they both ready themselves. You feel a small smile blossom on your face as they both charge at you. Now you're getting somewhere. Then your world focuses as they hit you from two directions at once, narrowing until all you know is the blur of movement and the sound of wood striking flesh.
Strike. Counter. Duck under that one. Step into Sakura's lunge there. Twist like so. They're doing better, hitting you from two angles at once. You block one strike and another takes its place, though they still need to verbalize to communicate. Your staff whirls around you, lashing out to give you some breathing room in the onslaught. Then it happens. You make a mistake. Not a large one, just slightly too slow in parrying a strike from Ino. The fight freezes as she locks your staff in her grip, leaving the choice of abandoning it or being pinned with it.
You see a smirk grow on her face as Sakura lines up a strike of her own. Too strong to parry effectively without a staff, too late to dodge effectively. Looks like you're trapped...or so they think. You return the smirk and
twist, the two metal hinges on your staff unlock and expand. The staff splits into three sections, and Sakura has just enough time for her eyes to widen before you use your newfound range of motion to dance out of the way of her strike. Then you follow it up with a, frankly brutal, kick to her side. She slams into Ino and they both go tumbling to the ground in a tangle of limbs.
You open your mouth to congratulate them, but you're interrupted by an angry shriek from Ino.
"You were supposed to hit her, not me! You idiot!"
"You're the idiot! You were
supposed to keep her pinned so I could!" Sakura shouts right back, pushing back against Ino as they both strain to untangle themselves from one another. "I had her!"
"Maybe if you hadn't been so obvious with your attack you cow!" Ino huffs, folding her arms and looking away from Sakura.
"Cow?! I'm not a cow you pig!"
"I'm only telling it like it is billboard-head!"
"Pig!"
"Billboard-head!"
You dutifully resist the urge to roll your eyes and flick your staff. The sharp movement relatching the three segments with a loud clack, which helpfully distracted the two girls before they can lunge at each other's throats. "Now, I'm pretty sure you both as supposed to be fighting me, not each other." You lean against the staff and give them a chipper smile, "But! By all means go at it, it will make my fight easier."
Both of them are glaring at you now. "We didn't even manage to hit you. I don't think we could have made it any easier for you." Sakura huffs, and Ino nods, a sour expression on her face.
You sigh "Well, you two actually did pretty good. Excellent coordination from two rookie genin who aren't even on the same team. You two were just fighting me in a match where I held all the advantages. I had a weapon so I had reach, I'm faster than you, and frankly I've got a year and change worth of experience on you." They both blink at the praise, and open their mouths to say something. You however cut them off, "
But~" You say brightly, "I was also holding back."
Sakura pales slightly, but Ino just blinks in confusion, her brow furrowing in confusion "Wait, I thought you were a weapons specialist? Unless you were planning to do that move you had in the finals with the scrolls, and that seems a bit...dangerous."
Sakura mutters something under her breath that sounds suspiciously like "bullshit"
"Ah! Sakura, no giving away the surprises. Gai-sensei wants me to push you two. So now that you proved you can work together, now I get to take off the brakes." You give them both a wide smile as you feel your aura suffuse the air around you. Sakura goes even paler and Ino's eyes go wide as saucers as they both shakily get to their feet. Then the world slows down around you as you lunge.
Things rapidly go downhill for them from there on out.
Later, once the sun hangs just above the horizon Gai-sensei calls an end to the spar, and you help a thoroughly exhausted Sakura and Ino to their feet. You couldn't bring yourself to really rough them up in the spar, but they've definitely improved over the course of having to deal with you. They are also covered in substantially more dirt and bruises than you are, but that's not important to anything besides your ego.
Ino groans as you pull her to her feet. Poor girl, she's probably just as exhausted as Sakura was yesterday. "So Ino, will I be seeing you again?"
"I'll...think 'bout it" She slurs out, stumbling slightly as she finds her footing.
"Oh you should definitely come back Ino! Just think about how strong you'll get from all those sit-ups and laps and push-ups and-"
Ino moans, shivering in your arms, and you shoot Sakura a dangerous smile. "That's right Sakura!, I'll be sure to mention to Gai-sensei how enthusiastic you are for his exercise regime. I'm sure he'll be
ecstatic."
The look Sakura shoots you is one of pure betrayal, and you can't help it. You laugh.
Between the two of you it's fairly simple to get the half-conscious Ino to her house, especially since Sakura seems to know every shortcut there. Then that only leaves you and Sakura alone, and as if on que, your stomachs gurgle in tandem with each other.
"So..." Sakura rubs the back of her head awkwardly. "Food? I feel kinda bad about blowing you off yesterday...and you had carry me home."
You stop, do you want to get food with Sakura? You were planning on using the remaining time today to do some research on Shikamaru (Hopefully without a repeat of what happened the
last time you tried to research one of your opponents). But on the other hand, you really could go for some food right now.
Though, now that you think about it, Sakura was in Shikamaru's academy year right? You could quiz her about him over food. Though there's no guarantee she actually knows anything useful that you don't already know.
So what do you do with Sakura?
[ ] Get food?
[ ] If so, where? (Chance for Random Encounter as well as learning more about Sakura)
[ ] Do you ask her about Shikamaru?
[ ] No thanks, I'm busy tonight. Maybe some other time. (Next update will be info-dump about Shikamaru)
Terribly sorry for the lack of updates, but the last week of Uni has been incredibly hectic. Hopefully I'll be able to get out updates rapidly for the next couple of days though. We shall see though. Anyway, there are ~3 updates left for this week, and then wrap-up and planning for next week. I may modify the structure for next week though, given I'm not entirely happy with how long this week has taken to get through. We'll see how it goes though.