The man heard a whisper in his ear, it was unsettling as it wrought forth memories of his encounter with the strange woman while he was comatose. A stabbing chill ran up his spine as he noticed Izumi standing next to him, the source of the whispers. Hanza still didn’t blame Izumi Karisuma for what had happened to him in the exams. Even moreso, he had come to realize everything that happened truly was a result of his own weakness. The only loose end wasn’t an end at all, but screws. Hanza of the Kōri clan had not stayed around long enough in that Kumogakure hospital room to be told the extend of the damage to his brain based on his collision with the metal pylon in his chunin exams fight. It was not uncommon for that sort of brain trauma to being about a change in someone’s personality. Worse so, there is almost nothing that can be done for it. The once cool and calm genin, awkward and lighthearted as he had been, was pained and sad. He was upset in general. His head would pang with intense bouts of nauseating discomfort. Hanging onto those morsels of who he had always been was a struggle, but he was still currently managing.

This incident of whispering followed by a roaring fireball was infuriating, however. A betrayal. Bearing in his mind the position of the clone before she became a nearly unavoidable fire orb, Hanza would angle a use of his newest technique, Coldsnap. The orb made contact with the ice user before he had an opportunity to set off his jutsu, it was simply far too close to him. The searing pain of major second degree burns brought out a howl of pain from within the now engulfing orb of fire. It was a mixture of the cry of a wounded beast and a roar of rage. Caged once again in the fire prison technique of Izumi Karisuma, without his barrier to protect him, Hanza would burn for just a moment. Collapsing to the ground as his Coldsnap technique froze the orb and projected forth another thirty-five meters toward the direction the clone had approached from. In the spot Hanza had stood was now just a large ball of ice. Hanza withdrew all of his remaining nitrogen deposits into a neat circle around the orb. As he sat within, staring at the ground with his eyes wide open, he wept silently.

Forward, the bluster of Hyōton enhanced wind in a five by five meter formation would continue outside of the orb toward the bench Izumi Karisuma sat upon, freezing her lingering protoplasm entirely if it came into contact. To those outside, Hanza’s fate would once again become unknown. The young Kōri clansmen would kneel within the cool orb, his flesh seared. He had no idea what he would do next. The idea of doing anything else beyond that point wasn’t even a formed thought. Something strange stirred within him as his body processed the trauma of such burns once more in his life. One time too many for someone with his dna, which made him incredibly susceptible to burns.

WC: 538
TWC: 1515

Chakra: 125/140:

As Mokuzai observed from his spot next to Fuyuko to see if his fleeting assault on Nozomi had any effect, must like the others such he would be a witness to this specific shinobi's abilities as she had easily avoid his three flying water blades with a technique of her own that produced petals that seemed to push her while still mid-air. One thing worked out though as the moment she had avoided his first technique  she was confronted with the giant shuriken right before it turned to his clone's, but unlike the first time she made no attempt to block the new jutsu the clone had weaved and took it head on and came out unscathed and it seemed that it had only aided her own movements. The young Senju would mentally curse at himself, he knew she had to be strong to be this confident but he had severely underestimated just how strong she was compared to his strength.

Before he could think about the situation with Nozomi even further he was meant with the  intense feeling of heat spreading across his back, Mokuzai quickly turned around and was meant with the view of four hundred fireballs coming towards him and Fuyuko's way. Although surprised by the sudden attack he quickly weaves hand signs whilst Fuyuko created defenses of her own before throwing himself down while his hands slammed against the ground as he looked down as a four and a half meter tall and two meters wide wall formed out of earth, The moment the wall had just been formed it had begun taking on the force of two hundred fireballs causing it to crumble away at a alarming rate as some slipped through and started giving Mokuzai 1st minor degree burns before the onslaught stopped as the wall was nothing more than a crumbled mess.

Although he had sustained some burns Mokuzai felt completely fine, It looks like his earth wall although it had shattered quickly kept the fireballs from doing their maximum damage and sighed in relief before looking towards  Fuyuko's way to see how she was holding up and he was surprised to see her there just standing  as still as a ghost. He begun to speak, "Oi! Why aren't you moving?" She did not respond and in a matter of fact look like her whole body had been frozen in time while her gaze remained transfixed  out towards in front of her, that's when Mokuzai started to suspect something and whistled for his remaining clone, "Look in front of me in Fuyuko's direction and tell me what you see" He would hear the okay sound from his clone as he did exactly what he was asked but then their was dead silence after, Mokuzai then suspected that they were being paralyzed with a genjutsu of some sorts that involved looking directly at the user.

Assuming his prediction was correct Mokuzai would turn back around towards Nozomi and roll towards Fuyuko as he quickly did a sweeping kick around him to knock her off her feet in hope's that now that her eye's weren't exactly looking at whoever the user was she would be free of their effects before pushing rushing his clone and pushing them out of the way to also possibly free them from their effects and whispered while he did so, "Go back to the tree where the substitution is for now and take hold of the giant shuriken" He didn't bother trying to face the one who summoned all those fireballs as if they had wanted to keep attacking they had more then enough ample time to have already done so.

Now that another problem he faced had been dealt with he would look towards Nozomi who was being confronted by Chi but not even a minute had gone by before a explosion went off as a appearance of a scorpion puppet's tail and the firing of a harpoon blurred was what Mokuzai perceived from his distance, lining up the trajectory of the harpoon going towards a mid-air that was aimed well around Nozomi's chest and stomach section as she was mid-air but such a shot may not be guaranteed hit. That information must have been known to the women in the puppet creation as he could see that she clearly held the look of someone ready to strike again, his eyes shifted to Chi who layed on the ground covered in a pool of red liquid and he would recognize this technique from the last time he used it when he had first arrived in Kirigakure meaning he was playing dead now for a possible future action.

The young Senju gripped his blade tightly in his right hand  and put his right leg forward and his left leg back with his body in a slightly tilted position, although it seemed like the others had given up or temporary withdraw it was not in his nature to do so nor at least give a stronger comrade support if he could. so Mokuzai begun lightly running around Nozomi who was still mid-air without getting closer and would look more like a shark circling it's prey, the moment her feet were at least seven inch's from the ground he would burst in at full speed behind her back and quickly swing his blade aiming for her hamstring's area without reserve in hope's that his attack will crumble her way out of avoiding the puppet user's next ranged attack if they missed their first attempt. Rather or not they missed or succeeded and he finds himself in danger his clone that he had ordered previously would come out of their hiding spot with the giant shuriken in hand in his vision so he could use the substitution jutsu to get himself out of harm's way while switching with the large weapon.

Chakra: 65/150

Jutsu Used:

WC:1,001

Total WC:3,034

Nozomi's attention to her surroundings were paramount to her survival. She was able to take in all of their actions with little difficulty. She focused mainly on the things that pertained to her, ignoring most of the others, rather passively keeping them noticed. Izumi wasn't really fighting her, Haka had withdrawn, Hanza wasn't a contender at the moment, Chigetsu was down for whatever reason, Atsuya hadn't even made a move since the start of the match, Fuyuko was dealing with Izumi. For the most part, that had made Nozomi's job much much easier, as she was only dealing with 3 people instead of the group of 9, but at the same time, she had to admit she was a little disappointed.

Nova of course she had expected to face her. She had won the Chuunin Exams, and her puppet defense was extraordinary. As far as Nozomi was aware, she was probably the only one who could actually break the puppet as it was. But Mokuzai and Kirei weren't much more than genin, and even as a group, wouldn't stand much of a chance against her as it stood. That was the point of this excercise though, purely a fun twist of a normal fight against multiple groups. It simulated the chaos of a large scale battle and kept everyone on their toes, while simulating the true nature of combat. Besides some training coming out of this, it was the lessons as well that she was focusing on.

Always pay attention in battle. Awareness was the most important thing to have, and even a weaker person could win if they were aware of everything. Izumi had picked up on some of the subtle hints, and so decided to attack the others. The fight wasn't particularly important. There was no real lose condition, only win conditions. There was not really a losing side, as long as nobody died. The easiest path in battle was sometimes the right one to choose, as long as it didn't break the objectives given.

Nozomi felt the ground vibrate beneath her, and having paid attention to the new puppet's whereabouts figured Nova had gone on the offensive. Leaping up into the air, she weaved quick signs, her barrier spreading out and around her quickly pushing away. The explosion managed to singe her clothes, but hadn't quite managed to deal any damage to her before the Ward of Dawn spread out and away from her. Kirei's attack had just pinged off of her shield with no harm, as she'd excluded him from it's protective sphere. However, she had decided to allow Mokuzai to stay within the wall of the shield, and as she was starting to land and he rushed her from behind, Nozomi made her counter.

Hearing his movement, feeling the air move as he moved, and having already known where he was to begin with, Nozomi was able to envision his position in her mind's eye, and she twisted her body with intense speed, moving about as fast as she could, pulling her legs up and to the side in the process. She went from vertical and facing away from him to horizontal and facing towards him, her right fist sweeping down towards him, hooking to the back over his head. If she landed her strike, it would launch him out of the sphere, probably knocking him out for a few seconds due to the daze, and she would land safely a moment later.

Regardless, as she landed, Nozomi would survey the area and grin momentarily. "You've all done well, but I'm calling it quits for now. Don't want to tear up Sero's front lawn too much. Reflect on this fight, remember where you all stand right now, and when Death Camp is over, you'll be able to compare yourself to where you are now." With that, she cancelled the Ward of Dawn and walked off towards the manor.

-Exit Thread Attempt-

Standing still, that was about everything the she was capable of doing. Fuyuko could still see everything that was happening in front of her. Hear the things that were happening around her and feel the ground shake underneath her but was unable to act upon anything. She just stood there as if she was frozen in time. Eventually someone would talk directly at her and so her attention got fixed on that as she kept on trying to move any of her muscles. The question was somewhat stupid from her own perspective but understandable at the same time from an outside perspective. Her not being able to move most likely had something to do with the fact that Izumi’s eyes had changed color. Did you she have a dojutsu? There wasn’t too much she was going to find out about it during this fight, but Fuyuko made sure to make a mental note and to find out more about it after the fight. It was probably smarter to avoid eye contact from the moment that she would be able to move once more, but in the meantime all she could do was wait until she could.

Izumi was on the move again not letting her tempo fall. It was very much like her, at least as far as Fuyuko could tell from the two experiences she has had with her. Izumi was relentless and would go for a complete overkill instead of assessing how everything went after each attack. This seemed to be the case once more three hand signs were made before chains sprouted from the patches of fire that were scattered around. Fuyuko was glad that she had preemptively put up a couple of barriers, those were really going to save her ass in this situation. The chains connected with her raiton barrier and got rid of that. However her underlaying suiton barrier seemed to be holding up just fine. As that was going on Nozomi spoke up again. The words she spoke were not received as encouragement by Fuyuko. Instead they felt more like short needles being jabbed in her sides. ”Done well? How could Nozomi possibly say I’ve done well. I missed the underlaying possibility in your words. I let Izumi get the upper hand once more.” she bit her lip as she gave herself a mental beatdown.

The pinching feeling on her lip made her snap out of the mental torment she was giving herself and made her realize she was finally able to control her body again the way that she wanted. Her eyes quickly slid down to look at Izumi’s torso instead of her eyes, despite the fact that her eye color had changed back to normal. She had no intel on the workings of her eyes and didn’t want to run the risk of getting paralyzed again. Fuyuko bit down harder on her lip drawing the slightest bit of blood. What could she possibly do in this situation. The confidence that Izumi exhumed was irritating, it was infuriating actually. For Fuyuko it was more of ‘I’m better than you’ kind of attitude. One of the worst kind of people that there were in her eyes. But what could she do about it, while it was nice and all that she shot her railgun instantly at Nozomi as a sort of start to the match, it had left her somewhat vulnerable now. Not defensively but offensively. She still had defensive capabilities up her sleeve that we strong, but there really wasn’t any strong offensive techniques she knew besides her railgun.

Agitated if not on the edge of furious Fuyuko lowered her guard. There wasn’t much if anything she could do to Izumi whom seemed to have too much of a plan to just dive straight at her. While yes she still had her suiton barrier up, but that alone was most likely not enough to thwart Izumi’s plans. She took a deep breath and exhaled quite audibly and with a tone of annoyance she spoke up while still looking in Izumi’s direction. “I hoped to show more of my strengths than the last time we fought, but it appears that I still don’t really stand a chance against you. I lost.” She said as turned away and walked towards the woods. She didn’t want to be in the company of others at least not while she was hating on herself for being so weak.

She stayed aware of her surroundings, but mostly just Izumi to see if she would try anything while her back was towards her. If she was left alone by the others she’d eventually stop and sit down underneath a tree and reflect on what has happened during the fight. At which point she’d sort of break down a little bit at the next failure she had put on display. “Why did I do that? What’s the point. Sure using my railgun like that show proactiveness but if I just waste my best and about only offensive action just like that what’s the point? I probably didn’t even make Nozomi flinch because of how telegraphed it was and it left me with hardly any opportunity to do anything against Izumi. I’m such a failure at being a shinobi!” she said to herself aloud as tears started to slowly roll down her cheeks. "How can I ever get strong enough to follow my dreams if I keep messing up like this…" she thought to herself as she covered her face with her hands and wept and clenched her teeth.


[EXIT THREAD ATTEMPT]

wc 946
twc 3060

[3060/4000] A > S Suiton

None would oppose the spider-nin stepping outside the fight, and so Haka would move to stand in the shadows of a dead tree where she would watch the rest of the battle would unfold. To the spider, the fight had been lost for the genin the very first moment the redheaded girl had turned against them instead of standing all together and trying to cooperate into taking down a stronger opponent. Though the spider-nin's experience was far from sufficient enough to assess Nozomi's actual power, she believed that if the lot of them would have been cooperating properly they could have landed a hit. Haka had proven this with her web, which Nozomi had not dodged, instead ripping the web to shreds with so much as no effort. Sure, a non-damaging jutsu would not have won the battle but every of such moments spent tearing through minor obstacles would have given the others a second of time more to land in their blows. The others had not understood this, preferring to choose raw destruction over strategy.

Even then, the multitude of assaults could have forced movement, reaction. A single sign of effort from Nozomi's side telling the younglings they stood a chance to take down the giant before them. Forcing them to figure out tactics rather than whisper among each other, turn on each other or randomly try out things. The fight would only have ended when either Nozomi couldn't fight any longer, defeated or subdued, or until all of them had been exhausted. They could have talked strategy, figured out a way. Instead, they fought each other. If this had been a mission, they would have failed. What was there to be learned from this sudden rebellion, this chaos, other than the inability to cooperate and weave a variety of options together into a sublime web? Not the fact that allies could be traitors because that was a given to the wolf spider, the Spider Clan's very nature being one of domination rather than trust.

But humans did not harbour such a strong nature for survival, did they? Haka had observed their communities. They were mostly made of cattle unable to fend for themselves, needing the few strong members to preserve their lives. Ironically reducing said strong members to grasshoppers forced to preserve the weak, where they could otherwise be directing their kin into new directions, surpass new limits and continue evolution. The human species was ancient in comparison to the Unmei, but it had grown dull at the core of its existence.

Victim to the blazing treason, a boy burned up, the stink of burned flesh pervading the area instantly. Ruined food. Yet, from the flames a force of ice would kill the heat and replace it with cold, revealing the Ice user defeated and unable or unwilling to go on whereas another man was creating an earthen defence to deal with a barrage of flames and came out of it with a couple of minor burns. The strangest thing about this Senju was how he was about the only one not caught in some sort of strange sorcery, barring Nova who was hidden and the oranges man having made his own distance behind the redhead.

Some of the others had simply stopped moving in their tracks, the only link between them being the fact they were watching the redheaded girl. Among the time-stopped humans, Chigetsu failed drinking from a simple water bottle and dropped out cold, a puddle of blood forming under his head, making Haka blink in confusion at the lethality of the bottle of water. Haka could not deduct why this would possibly the case, Dojutsu not being something she was familiar with, but the comical display continued as the Senju started to push down the immobile like puppets in a theatre to denote they were defeated or dead.

The earth then moved to reveal the drilling tail of Nova's hidden puppet, suddenly firing of a harpoon straight at the mid-air Nozomi. At first it had looked like it would have guaranteed a hit as movement mid-air was not something the spider-nin considered possible. At that same time, with the distraction created of the bulging earth, Oranges would come into action, eyes bright red and spinning, revealing the existence of Dojutsu to Haka for a first time. Whatever they did was still a mystery, but somehow they allowed Orange and his clone to perform the same technique together in perfect tandem. Earth boy joined in to the best of his abilities from yet a different angle, but not even their combined effort would be able to land the slightest hit against the Nozomi as she deflected and pushed back the fireballs with a single jump and series of hand seals, leaving the Senju by his own to deal with a force far superior than himself. He would soon find himself knocked out of sphere and dealt with, leaving the titan to rule the battlefield.

As was to be expected. Turning against the troops that had stood at their side just a moment ago, the remaining members had crippled their own advance whereas having allowed the full masses to carry on, even if it was just as weak sacrificial fodder to distract Nozomi, would have raised the chances to land a hit. The chaos they had spread had fuelled their own loss to land a hit on the greater objective. As Nozomi ended the fight then and there, congratulating them for what Haka considered a failure, the spider-nin's hand would brush through her white hair. Why Sero would care for a front lawn was beyond her, but any reason to finish the fight was a good one if the Nozomi decided to do so. She was the stronger one of the group, and had the rights to dictate the advance of the weaker.

The group would break apart even more than it already was, each of them going about their own way with their own thoughts about how they fared. Haka's eyes would briefly shift to the two people she was familiar with. Nova in her puppet, hidden from sight, then Fuyuko, with tears of anger covering her face, revealing she considered herself weak for trying to strike down something that was beyond her power. While yes, it did reveal weakness of skill, she had shown strength in spirit. To Haka, Fuyuko's flaw was not that she could not deal with a power beyond her, it was rather she lacked the insight to withdraw in time so she could observe, learn and improve to strike back another day. Failing a hunt was not the problem, failing to find nourishment to continue healthy growth was. Unfortunately, such was the calcification of the human species, who with their successful conquer of the world had grown too arrogant to continue evolution.

Deciding she had learned more about combat and different techniques from her observations than she could have done by randomly spitting out jutsu, the spider-nin would leave the confines of the battle field and walk up the steps that lead to the manor. She had no need to converse with these humans. All she needed now was to reach the kitchen where she could sit down on one of its many chairs in peace. She had still a couple of puddings to eat, and that would be exactly what she would do. Haka opened the double gates to the manor, walked inside and left the door open for those she assumed would wish to follow inside. After all, her Creator had allowed these human visitors to live inside the stone construction that formed his manor, so there was little reason for her to oppose his decision even if she did not understand his reasoning.

---

[(Attempted) EXIT]

1314
Total: 4020

Training:

Mokuzai would watch as the shinobi Nozomi would leap into the air, he watched as she weaved quick signs, creating a barrier that pushed Nova's attacks away resulting in her cloth's only being slightly singed. The attack of the Uchiha Kirei's attack had just pinged off of her shield with no harm, as whatever barrier she enacted protected her before fading off, Mokuzai was sure he could get her as he was within the her defensive wall and on path to rush at her as she landed.

Just as she did so she did what seemed impossible to him, moving at a high speed and moved in a way that made her appear right in front of him as if she had just teleported form a substitution, before he knew it he saw a fist coming his way, t happened all so fast but before Mokuzai even had time to react, he was on the ground and then blackness.

By the time he woke up nobody was even there, it seems his attack failed, but he wouldn't let himself get discouraged as he would keep training until next time.

-Exit-

WC: 193

Total WC: 3,227

Wood Release: Cursed seed(E-rank Jutsu) 450/450 (2,777 Words Left)

Wood Release: King's Defense(B-rank Jutsu) 1,350/1,350 (1,427 Words Left)

Earth Style: Beast of the mountain(B-rank Jutsu) 1,350/1,350 (77 Words Wasted)


(Felt super lazy and this was when i was a genin, zero motivation. :D)