Mission name: Combat Practice
Mission rank: C-rank
Objective: Spar
Location: Thunder grounds
Reward: 200 ryo
Mission description: A genin has put up the ryo for a sparing partner. You look like you could use the training and so we've assigned you.
Mission details: Go to the thunder grounds, there he will talk to you before you can see them, then walk out behind a rock, and will bow before beginning the spar. you may not kill or maim them, but everything else is fair game.

Sourai entered the Thunder Grounds, a dangerous field for anyone to visit, much less Genin like himself. He could see the dark ominous thunder clouds overhead, along with the ever frequent flash of lightning as it struck the earth, sometimes even going through one of the many cracks that filled the grounds.

And the mission was to spar here? The Genin was either really confident or really stupid.

“Hello?” Sourai called out, upon realising that he was the only one there. “Is anyone there?”

There was no response. There wasn’t even any movement, other than that of the lightning clouds gathering around the area as they always did, and lightning made itself known again by striking the ground not five feet away from him.

“Damn lightning,” Sourai said. It was bad enough that this was actual, natural lightning, meaning it was much more dangerous than any lightning that Genin, or even some Chuunin, could produce. But to a Ryuzoji like himself, any lightning was already dangerous. The fact that this was enough lightning to challenge an A-ranked offensive jutsu was just icing on the cake.

“Scared of a little lightning?” someone called out.

Sourai turned around, trying to find the source of the voice, which had seemed to echo from all directions, while also keeping his attention focused on the lightning clouds above him. At any one point they could gather, and Sourai really, really didn’t want to be the point where the decided they would ground.

Shit like that hurt.

“You the client?” Sourai asked, raising his voice slightly so he could be heard over the sound of thunder grumbling above.

He heard some shuffling to his left and turned, seeing a small figure walk out from behind a large boulder. It was a girl of roughly one year younger than him, with brown hair that fell into two long pigtails trailing all the way down to her knees. She wore a thick white long-sleeved shirt that went below her waist, and a pair of black pants that stopped above her ankles. He could see the faint shape of a ninja pouch at the right of her waist, hidden under her shirt.

“Sourai?” she asked with a chuckle. Almost as if making a mockery of him.

“Yeah, do I know you?” Sourai himself asked.

“No, but I know you. I was in the year below you, and our teacher brought us to see the seniors’ taijutsu class one day. I saw you get your ass whooped.”

Sourai remembered that day. It was not a fond day to remember.

“You know, it’s a good thing I’m fighting a girl, since I left my sword back home,” Sourai replied.

“Oh, I’m going to make you regret that, Sourai,” her eyes glintered. “Leaving your sword back at home, I mean. I can take so much more of your boasting. It makes it so much better when I crush you.”

She started to run at him, only for him to hold up a palm, signalling for her to stop. “Before we fight, can I at least have your name?” he asked, before smirking. “I wanna know who I’m pounding into dust.”

“The name’s Harumi Atsushi. Anything else you want to get out of the way?” she asked.

“Yeah. Did you really pay for this mission?” Sourai asked, and his only answer was Harumi charging straight at him. “I guess that’s a yes.”

She threw a punch with her left fist, which he dodged easily enough, before letting his fist fly straight to her gut. She was ready though, and blocked his right hand with her right arm, before reeling her left fist back again to punch him. Sourai leaned back instintively, just barely dodging the punch, before somersaulting backwards as she did a sweeping kick with her right leg.

“You’re not half bad, Sourai,” Harumi taunted as she brought her hands close to her face in a boxing-like taijutsu stance, shifting her weight from one leg to the other as she bounced on her toes.

Sourai landed in a crouch, done with his three sets of somersaults to get some distance between them. “And you’re pretty light on your feet, Harumi. So tell me, what’s the whole point of this mission? Am I supposed to beat you or something?”

Harumi shot a grin at him, before shooting herself at him, running into a full sprint. Sourai barely dodged the hook she threw, but was unprepared for her when her right knee shot up, hitting him straight in the gut. He was lifted off his feet and sent flying one metre back, rolling on the ground a few times before he got back up. He made to charge at her again, only to be stopped when a strike of lightning hit the ground between them. He saw the small scorched area on the ground, before his eyes met Harumi’s again, and he noticed her smiling.

“The whole point of this mission is just to spar, since my whole team’s out of commission after our last C-rank mission. You might want to kick it up a notch, though, Sourai. Use those electric eyes of yours if you want.”

“Tch, I won’t need them to beat you,” Sourai replied, before he ran at Harumi again, who just bounced from feet to feet, hands held close to her head and pigtails waving behind her.

He jumped delivered a horizontal kick to her face, which she easily blocked with both her hands already so close to her face. This left her stomach open, though, for his other leg to take advantage of, and she was pushed back a few inches, before he realised that her fingers were sparking. Eyes widening, he threw himself to one side just as he landed on the ground, barely evading the Shock Bullets that she had thrown his way, and then rolling to the side as the heel of her leg came crashing down to where his face once was.

“Damn, are you trying to kill me?” he asked.

“Hey, not my fault you’re so bad at this,” she replied, already flying through hand seals. “Water Release: Water Trumpet!”

Sourai could only watch as he saw the jet of water fly towards him. He tried to roll out of the way, but was only able to move slightly to redivert the attack to his shoulder, which now ached with pain as he struggled to get up on one knee.

“What’s the matter, Sourai? Having difficulty?” she asked.

“Heh, I’m just getting started,” he answered.

The two sized each other up, before Harumi seemingly lost patience first and ran at him. They traded blows, with Sourai mainly on the defensive as he realised Harumi could hit harder and faster than he could, despite being one year younger than he was. Worse still, she was throwing jutsu after jutsu as if they were all E-ranks, even if some of her jutsu seemed to border on B-rank itself, with how destructive they seemed.

Sourai ducked under a punch before lashing out with a kick, which was blocked by an arm similar to how their first exchange started. She then countered with a kick of her own, which he blocked with both arms, before delivering a Lightning Release; Shock Bullets jutsu straight into her system, eliciting a small yelp from her, and a small grin from him as he finally managed to land a hit on her. She limped back as Sourai jumped to his feet to balance himself, the two of them eyeing each other and trying to catch their breaths, even if they had only been sparring for a good ten minutes.

“Okay, I’ll give you,” she said between pants. “That was a pretty sneaky tactic.”

“I’ll take what I can get, at this point,” he replied, before charging forward.

Their exchange began anew, though this time Sourai was less on the defensive and more on the offensive, with Harumi now taking his place as she struggled to protect her injured left leg, which seemed to be the target of almost all of Sourai’s attacks. Once, she made the mistake of lashing out with her left leg in an attempt to kick him, only for Sourai to block it (or counter it) with his elbow, sending pain throughout her leg and disrupting her focus long enough for Sourai to land a good two hits into her stomach.

She teetered back, trying to catch her breath, only for Sourai to throw a strong right hook to her face, clocking her good and causing her to collapse on the ground. She tried to get up, only for Sourai to sit on her back.

“You know, I could fire an air jutsu at you and you’d be dead,” he said.

“And I could technically shock you with any six of my Raiton jutsu and you’d be dead,” she replied, revealing that one hand was already in the half tiger seal.

“Huh, well played,” he said, not getting off.

“Call it a draw?”

“Hey, who’s the one on top?”

“Who’s the one paying?”

“Touché,” he replied, before standing up and extending his hand to her.

"You know I went easy on you because you didn't have your sword."

"And I went easy on you because you were a girl."

Sourai swore he would never say that in front of her again when she punched him and he felt a lightning shock course through his system.

[Exit thread]

WC: 1607

C-rank: 1000
Strength from E-2 to D-0: 525