Lin was wearing a scarf that matched her eyes and a Kumogakure outfit, her skirt, a set of black leggings, and her ninja sandals. She had asked Asura to spar with her today, and so she had her Tonfa on the belt of the outfit. Looking around the street, she finally found his shop. It was called the White Rose Flower Shop. It was a nice shop from the outside, with wood she thought he probably made. He was a senju, after all, and would probably have made the wood himself rather than having it hired done. She opened the shop, the bell tinkling her way in. She wasn't here on a stealth mission, or she would have found another way to come in.

The floor of his shop was covered in plant pots that were filled with several types of flowers, on the left he had some Foxgloves, Bulebells, Orchids of several colours and a few others. On the right he had a large selection of roses and colourful flowers, above on the shelves were herbs and spices that would typically be found in the forests of Konoha or were farmed. It kept the whole shop colourful and made Asura seem more hopeful about the future.

She moved to the left, looking at the Orchids and remembering, vividly, the first flower that she thought that he had made there, it was for her, and she had put it in her hair. She would have to come back to the store for a plant after the spar. Lin had been training by going on missions with Syn, and had also done some fighting with some bandits int he woods with Toshi. She was more than ready for the sparring match, and hoped that Asura was up for it as well.

The Orchids were of many different colors, but she focused on the one that had white petals with blue veins and a green stem that was quite petite. It reminded her of Gora, or perhaps of her, she noted. Maybe Asura remembered what Lin looked like. It was in stark contrast to her clothing now. She was ready for battle, or mock battle that is, and wanted to make sure that she was ready for anything. She had put her hair up in a french braid, keeping her bangs out of her eyes, and then had wrapped the braid into a bun to keep the hair from flying in her face. All of this was fastened by a bun.

Well, it was nice to see that the store was getting on so well. She hoped that he would have flowers enough for everyone in Kumogakure soon enough. And perhaps someone to hire to help around the shop when he was not there.

WC: 463

Despite the past few nights being a bit strange for Asura, not being able to sleep as well, sometimes falling out of his bed due to him being too big for it, he had finally managed to get a bed, he made the frame himself, designed it to suit him but the mattress was bought elsewhere. Asura slept soundly at first, almost not moving in his bed as he lay facing down, he had been so tired recently, being so busy from working on the shop, it was a fantasy of his, a dream. However, this dream wound not put a halt to his other dreams, the dream of becoming powerful, the dream of protecting his family from danger, it would simply be a front for his dreams, a way for his future to become a reality.

He kept sleeping, moving a little from time to time, letting out a light murmur and even from time to time the slightest whimper, normally he would have fallen out of the bed and hit his head on the floor, but this time the bed seemed to fit him. The past few days have been very tiring, meeting the Jounin, Nozomi by sheer chance, and the preparation for the fight with Lin, not to mention getting the store ready to be opened for today. He had spent almost the whole of the last half a week dedicated to just the finalisation of the shop, The White Rose aimed to be something new. Asura planned to eventually, perhaps a month or two after the opening of the store, to travel to Konoha again, to visit his family, and then, to travel. His first step would be to the Land of Water, then to the Land of Earth, maybe to the Land of Wind, he wasn't too sure if there even was any flora in the Land of Wind but it would be interesting to find out, and it would be interesting to fight some Ninja there.

The nightmares seemed to have stopped the past few days, perhaps they were preparing for something, perhaps Vritra had something in his agenda other than tormenting Asura. Regardless, it would probably happen soon, and Asura feared that. It wasn't until recently that he had been thinking of returning to Konoha, just for a few days, but this thought had stirred something in Asura. His rather cheerful dream had started to turn into a nightmare, he was in the forest again, the dead of night, nothing alive in the forest but the trees and the bushes. Asura would frequently see glowing red eyes move across the tress, and a large creature with multiple arms, but he never actually saw the face, he wished that he would never see it. It was a true horror for Asura, before the nightmare could start to take hold, he forced himself awake and out of the horror he faced before.

Asura had awoken early in the morning, a little earlier than normal. He placed a hand on his head and wiped the cold sweat off as he started to slowly sit up, placing his feet on the cold wooden floor, it was a change from the normal sleeping in the wild of Kumo. Asura started to lift himself up, standing tall before starting to stretch his arms and legs, stretching his back a little. He went over to his chest of draws and collected an outfit, ready to be used, he took it to the bathroom and hung it up before he got in the shower and started to turn it on. About half an hour later he had stepped out and started to get dressed in his normal outfit, he was without the normal gloves as he had sold it a few days ago, but he was ready for anything the day could present.

Asura's outfit this morning was his standard black jeans, no shirt, black sleeveless kimono that was open at the chest. Over that he wore a white coat that was sleeveless and reached down to his ankles which themselves were covered up by his black leather boots. His chest still bore the tattoo of the Senju clan symbol, as did the back of the white coat. He combed his hair so that it would appear to hang a little over his head, and he shaved the light stubble that had been forming around his face. Asura made his way to the kitchen and grabbed an apple and started eating it.

The floor of his shop was covered in plant pots that were filled with several types of flowers, on the left he had some Foxgloves, Bulebells, Orchids of several colours and a few others. On the right he had a large selection of roses and colourful flowers, above on the shelves were herbs and spices that would typically be found in the forests of Konoha or were farmed. It kept the whole shop colourful and made Asura seem more hopeful about the future. Today was opening day for The White Rose Flower Shop, Asura had put up a few flyers in the area he lived in a few days ago, trying draw more attention to the store. As Asura stepped into the shop again, he turned the sign that hung at the door so that it would say 'OPEN' rather than 'CLOSED'. He moved to behind the counter and sat down on his stool, bringing out a manga that he had started reading a few days ago.

After a few hours of waiting, reading his manga, Asura looked up to the sound of the bell with someone coming in. Lin walked in and Asura smiled, placing a book mark back into his manga and closing it. He looked back to her and smiled, lifting a hand to wave, "Morning Lin." He spoke cheerfully as she looked around at the flowers and the other plants, he was looking forward to today, looking forward to sparring. Asura got up and walked over to the flowers and where Lin was, he bent over a picked a single white orchid and handed it to her, "Here, you can always one from here." Asura spoke with a smile, looking down towards her, he was ready for today, he had trained new Jutsu just for it, and mastered them. He just wasn't too sure the best way to use them yet, aside from that he wasn't too sure how he would be able to battle Lin, everyone's style was different after all.

Lin perused the flowers until Asura came up behind her and announcedd that she could take one of the white orchids any time that she wanted. Smiling, she put it into her hair and stretched a bit. It was early-ish for her and she didn't enjoy the early mornings, but training needed to be at inconvenient times. After all, battles happened at inconvenient times, and never were planned. It was a good thing that trainings were, but if she wanted to grow stronger, she would have to set uncertain times, where she could be attacked by opponents on their terms, not hers. But that would all have to wait.

She nodded, "Thank you, Asura, as usual you're too kind. I have developed some new techniques. I hope that you don't mind if I were to try them out today?" She smiled. She had, indeed, developed some new techniques, and she was at the top of her tier. A chuunin in her prime. She had tried to make sure that she didn't use them offensively, but she thought that Asura, if anyone could, could handle them. She wasn't the strongest, nor the most tough chuunin, but her precision and reaction times were unmatched in the chuunin class. She was eager to get to know Asura's fighting style.

She made sure, of course, to patch up her sparring partners when she was done, as well as herself, and she always yielded before there was any permanent damage done. Though, to be honest, the last time that she had sparred someone it had been Satoshi Kazuhiko, a Genin that she held dear as he was her first partner. He had helped with a lot of missions before taking a bit of a hiatus to help around with his grandmother. She knew that he would catch up soon, but that she couldn't wait for him either. Perhaps she could help him when he was done with his grandmother.

"Let's go to the battle plateau, there's a lot of room there, like I said, and we can choose between a variety of venues. It was where I met Satoshi, actually, and if we get there soon we get first picks on the arena." She smiled and hopped out of the door, waiting for Asura to follow her. She assumed that he would have to close up the shop and so she waited until he was done with what he had to do.

When he would follow, she would go to to the plateau, there were two Jounin already clashing. Apparently they had chosen to do battle with absolutely no jutsu. Still, sparks were flying from kunai being thrown by one , from seemingly nowhere while the other was on the defensive. He seemed to be completely occupied by his task of keeping the kunai at bay.

Lin looked around. No one else there. So that meant they had full range to choose their arena.

There were about 5 options available to them.

The first, a little arena, only 20 feet by 20 feet where the people entered through with a ladder. The arena was 15 feet deep and was more of a fighting pit than anything.

The next type was a circle drawn in the stone, 40 feet by 40 feet, less of a chance to break bones when hitting a wall, but more of a chance to accidentally step out of the ring.

The third, a type of ring that had walls, but could probably be taken down by strong jutsu was 40 feet by 40 feet as well, and was a square.

The foufth was a wide open space, roughly 1000 feet by 1000 feet, and was mainly used by Special jounin ranks and up, it didn't have boundaries per-se. So the people that used this one usually had rules set up in advance for victory conditions. She had seen some gruesome duels in this one, and there was only one of these.

The fifth was a tiered arena that constantly switched. It was on a pulley system that ran throughout, and walls would suddenly pop up and collapse, making it the most dangerous of them all. It was the one that was by far the least used, and was usually only utilized for training Anbu members, or those wanting to BE Anbu Members.

"So which one?" Lin asked, looking around and then looking at Asura.

WC: 1203

Stats and Chakra: (200 chakra):