We Fight For the Society (Nozomi)

Once they had gotten settled Honiko would lead Nozomi to a deserted part of the barren Isle. The girl would still have the seal she had placed on her earlier which was good. Their training would be intense and she did not want Isobu to use it as an excuse to try and break free. The duo would reach a clearing surrounded by several large black stone pillars. It appeared to be a makeshift training ground of sorts with dummies and various implement. Nozomi would notice a pile of burnt training dummies in the corner and if she made this obvious Honiko would smirk. She didn't care to train here personally but her busy schedule occasionally forced her to make do. The Dragon Sage was wearing her typical combat gear although this iteration of her leather armour was black rather than burgundy. Once they were centered in the training field, Honiko placed her hands on the hips and turned to face the blonde.

"How did she beat you?"

Was Honiko referring to Ryuko or to Natsuru?

Nozomi looked around as she followed Honiko silently. Though she despised him, Makahshi had been right in that when someone around you was much stronger than you and was in charge, it was smart to stay silent unless asked something directly. This was fine with Nozomi, she wasn't very talkative normally anyhow.

She looked around at the dummies, burnt and not, and then back to Honiko, who was smirking. The act reminded her a little of Yomi, but she didn't make that known.

There was the matter of the 3 tails, who had informed her that he couldn't influence her chakra with his own, even to help, because of her seal. He wanted her to remove the extra seal, but that was something Honiko would need to do, as Nozomi wasn't quite sure she had enough skill to do so herself.

"She didn't. Nobody beat me but you when you put the seal on me. I was still ready to fight more." Nozomi said, lifting her shirt a little to reveal her seal.

Honiko stared at the young girl as she responded. It appeared she didn't quite understand why she had lost or even that she had lost in the first place. "If you continued fighting you'd have died. The Three Tails would be unleashed and would rend your mind and body asunder. I would have to seal it and it would have wasted my time. I stopped you before you turned a temporary loss into a permanent one" she chided. "Ryuko beat you because you were too soft, she used your sense of mercy and affection against you. The archer beat you because you underestimated her. But above all else, you lost because you could not rely on your own power and when it came time to rely on the Three Tails you couldn't control him"

Honiko's arms dropped to her sides and she summoned a tomahawk into her hand. She pointed the weapon at Nozomi specifically towards the bare seal she had exposed.

"Your first lesson is in responsibility. If you can't acknowledge your past failures, you will have no hope of future victories. Embrace your defeat and use the pain to fuel your ascension. I won't be removing that seal until I am satisfied that you have learned how to rely on your own power"

Nozomi put her hands on her hips, staring at Honiko like she was crazy. "Excuse me? Were you even watching that fight? First off, I was in control of the Sanbi. He was trying to take over but I had control." She said, her eyebrows furrowing.

"And I'm sorry, but Ryuko and I barely fought. I wouldn't call what happened a defeat on my end. I just got distracted by that blonde guy, Simon I think she called him. I wanted to fight her. He was in the way." Her anger was rising as she spoke, but she took a moment to calm herself, her voice going back to normal half way through talking.

"As for the archer, I lost it on her and underestimated her for sure. She was about to die, and I wasn't expecting that adrenaline surge to go through her. I know she wasn't really that strong. Still, I had planned on taking the hit anyway. It was part of my plan to use my healing factor to confirm my attack. And it worked too. I got the kunai in, I heard the explosion in the area. There's no way she removed it in time and escaped intact." As she spoke about Natsuru, her blood was both boiling in anger at the mere thought of her, but also had a sense of satisfaction course through her as she knew the girl was injured and got what she deserves. There weren't even thoughts of a reward for it, she simply wanted the girl to suffer.

Honiko's eyes narrowed and she allowed Nozomi to finish. The woman restrained her anger at Nozomi's incessant whining and complaining about he situation. When Nozomi was finished her sensei would upturn her head and look down on the blonde before speaking.

"Excuses are tools of incompetence used to build monuments of nothingness. Those who specialize in using them are seldom good for anything but making more excuses. When I give you a mission, I expect you to complete it. I don't want to hear about how you were distracted, how you underestimated someone, or how someone got an adrenaline boost at the last second. I don't care. I care about results."

Honiko waved the weapon dismissively somewhat disappointed that Nozomi lacked the self-awareness and humility to acknowledge that her bout had been nothing less than an utter failure.

"Enough of your speculative prattle. I can confirm the archer survived the explosion and was largely in-tact. Their group is strong and if you face them again at your current level, you'll either die by their hand or your own when you lose control of Sanbi" She wasn't going to entertain a debate on whether or not Nozomi had control of her Tailed Beast. If she was unable to recognize how close she had come to losing control she had no business using her Jinchurikki powers.

Honiko gripped the tomahawk in one hand and gestured to Nozomi with the other.

"Come then. You resorted to using Sanbi so quickly I didn't get an accurate glimpse of your strength without his aid. Attack me."

As Honiko spoke, Nozomi's has set a little bit, not able to really hold in her anger all that well. However, despite her emotions reeling, she didn't say anything in response or back talk any further. She had let her emotions rule her in combat, and that was largely what had given her a blind rage. She knew why she failed. She wasn't focused. Makahshi had taught her to use her rage, but it wasn't something she could do without completely losing her focus.

Her eyes narrowed as Honiko revealed that Natsuru was largely unscathed. That bitch would die the next time they met, Nozomi was sure of it. "Yes ma'am. I understand. I won't lose focus again and won't fail you." She said, giving her guarantee that she was going complete all missions she was given without fail. She was right. Results were all that mattered. That's how she had been taught before Makahshi. That's how it had to be.

As she was ordered to attack, Nozomi took up her usual stance. "Yes... ma'am." She launched herself forward, more sliding than anything else as she barely picked her feet up so she always had a solid footing on the ground, her speed impressive for a genin, but not quite up to par with what a shinobi should have, showing some room for improvement there.

While speed wasn't her primary focus, she hadnt hesitated to attack Honiko with just her bare hands, despite the weapon her new sensei wielded. Nozomi wasn't particularly concerned against weapons as her taijutsu skills were honed to such a degree that she could confidently take them on without too much of an issue, and she had her own weaponry and jutsu to supplement if she was proven wrong in that regard.

She opened up with a fairly simple attack sequence, although the speed and precision with which she launched her strikes was anything but simple. To even trained eyes, her speed was immense, especially for a genin. Her attacks came in swiftly, and close in, not giving Honiko space to attack with her tomahawk, trying to stay in her personal space, only a few inches apart.

For even normal Taijutsu users, this was a difficult distance to fight from, but Nozomi has a few advantages of experience, muscle memory, and size. Being smaller, she was much more suited to staying in close that she would be dancing out of her opponent's reach unless she was using a ranged attack.

Her focus was on forcing Honiko back, getting in quick strikes, and keeping her entirely controlled. She initiated with a defensive strike, to gain control of Honiko's tomahawk arm. She kept all her attacks on the inside of Honiko's arm rather than the outside. Her first strike launched towards the bend in her elbow, to keep the arm from swinging and to start working on the arm, building up small strikes. A second strike came in from the same hand, gliding up her arm to hit against her shoulder. A large portion of power could be generated by the shoulder , and knocking it back slightly could kill momentum before it even began. She would then pull her arm back, elbow moving towards Honiko's wrist to hit the joint and perhaps disarm her. Her other arm was prepared defensively in case of retaliation.

At the same time, she had slid her right foot forward, keeping hers inside Honiko's footing, pushing hers into Honiko's left foot to weaken her footing and push into her space. The purpose of this was to force Honiko to backpedal, sacrificing her ground and footing, and allow Nozomi to advance into her space. She would control the field, and not let Honiko retaliate. That was her goal. She would show Honiko her skills and she would be respected.

-used Spring Chant.
Ua reduces tai cost.
Coordination is A

Honiko was pleased that Nozomi knew when to stay silent and accept criticism. The girl controlled herself and resolved to do better in the future. She was feisty and filled with all the ambition and drive that most kunoichi her age had. Honiko could remember having the same defiance although she liked to think her time in the monastery had beaten it out of her before she had come under her Master's instruction. Looking at how Nozomi conducted herself though she couldn't help but wonder if that was just wishful thinking. Perhaps she was every bit as stubborn as the blonde before her was now. No matter, that kind of hubris and impulsiveness would be quelled and replaced with an iron discipline. The sort of cold and unfeeling commitment to excellence that made her a formidable shinobi and a worthy inheritor of the Sage's will.

When Nozomi leapt into action via Spring Chant her sensei was already ready. Honiko utilized the Strong Fist Taijutsu style to augment her own speed and coordination. Whereas Nozomi sought to close the distance and remain within Honiko's close quarters, the Dragon Sage made use of her superior speed to stay out of reach. Nozomi's coordination was impressive while using Taijutsu and Honiko made note of the girl's natural reflexes and capacity to move her body with precision. Yet despite all of this, her ability to close the gap between them was insufficient. Nozomi still had the frame of a young woman and her reach was nowhere near good enough to actually hit Honiko as long as she used her natural celerity to move out of range. Neither Honiko's body nor her weapon would be in any danger as she hopped back from Nozomi's strikes. She gladly gave ground to the young kunoichi, skipping backwards and moving across the training field as though she didn't even need to look where she was going as she let her ward chase her around the field. Honiko's eyes scanned Nozomi's body, looking at her form, strength of strikes, the speed of her strikes, and the intensity at which s moved. She possessed real talent in terms of Taijutsu but there was so much more that needed to be worked on as well.

Speed: B+
Coordination: B++

Nozomi figured out quickly enough that if she was going to catch up to Honiko, she needed to use her big guns. She had two choices in that regard, either utilize her Nintaijutsu, or move into the Arhat Fist style, as she needed to have more power behind her attacks in order to actually deal anything that could be described as damage. While she was keen on using her Petal techniques, Nozomi preferred to keep those under wraps for the moment, as they'd been displayed already. She wanted to develop them further, but for the moment, she needed to show Honiko exactly what she could do on physical merit alone. Still, that wouldn't deter her from using some of the ones that aided in her precision and speed.

Switching from the Spring Chant style to the Arhat Fist, having made up her mind, Nozomi watched Honiko as she stayed out of range, inviting her to try and catch up. It was like she was just judging her and not even bothering to attack back, so Nozomi figured she would give her some more information to go on. Focusing all of her attention on Honiko, feeling like she could actually give her all in this fight for once, even though it was a spar, Nozomi decided she shouldn't hold back at all.

Building up her chakra and focusing it on her back, she gathered it together held it. Unless Honiko was actively sensing her, she wouldn't notice the build up. Moving her hands quickly into the seal for a Body Flicker, Nozomi aimed towards Honiko, prepared to catch her a bit off guard. With Petal Propulsion and Body Flicker together, her burst of speed was immense, accelerating her much faster than either of the techniques alone would have. It might allow for a moment of surprise, as she probably wouldn't have been expected to move quite so fast.

If she caught up with the pale woman, Nozomi's right palm would accelerate towards Honiko's solar plexus, seeking to drive the air from her lungs, and she'd follow up with a short but intense combination of attacks, flowing through Arhat Fist much faster than most who utilized it, aided a little by short burst applications of her Misty Petal Shifts, each attack preceded by a small build up of chakra in the hand or foot of whichever limb she was attacking with.

As her palm moved towards Honiko's solar plexus, a small burst of petals would trail behind her hands, the burst of them coming out seeming to help accelerate her attack. She followed up with a lift of her left knee, her left foot also launched up with a burst of petals, accelerating her knee to try and drive it into Honiko's gut with nearly as much force behind it as the initial Shattering Palm. There wasn't really a way for her to accelerate her shoulder forward, so hopefully her normal speed would be enough, combined with the shock of those two techniques catching her off guard, as she drove her right shoulder forward, throwing her weight behind it, and as it was about to connect, she started to also bring up her left palm into an uppercut, also aided with the burst of petals, aiming to catch her under the jaw and launch her upward and backwards.

Even if these didn't connect, it would show that Nozomi knew that Honiko meant business, and that her faith in the young blonde wasn't mistaken. Interestingly enough though, Nozomi noticed that her movements and perception was much sharper than they had been during the fight at the Valley. It was as if her muscles remembered the power of the 3 Tails coursing through her. It hadn't left, at least as far as her movements were concerned, and she'd learned to keep up with the speeds she was going. She was excited for once. Even without the 3 Tails, she was a force to be reckoned with. Underestimating her would be a mistake.

-

Techs used:
Body Flicker - 5 cost
Misty Petal Propulsion - 3 cost
Arhat Fist - 1 Upkeep
Shatter Palm - 1 Cost
Misty Petal Shift - 1 Cost
Rising Knee -1 cost
Misty Petal Shift - 1 Cost
Shoulder Charge -1 cost
Slamming Palm -1 cost
Misty Petal Shift - 1 Cost
Total - 17 Stamina used
Stamina - 18/80 used

Techs Used [Mainly showing you my custom ones, since the others are more known, and its tedious to link with the phone]:

Spoiler:

UA's Used:

Spoiler:

Stats:
Strength: D -> C [Arhat Fist] -> C++ [Rising Knee & Shoulder Charge] -> B [Shatter Palm & Slamming Palm
Constitution: C
Stamina: C
Speed: C -> B [Body Flicker] -> A [Misty Petal Propulsion]
Coordination: B -> A [Single Minded Focus UA] -> A++ [Misty Petal Shifts]
Intelligence: C -> D [Single Minded Focus Drawback]
Perception: B

Honiko watched Nozomi's speed and dexterity with an eye for the subtle details. She focused on her breathing, her form, her pacing, the way that she selected her targets. Honiko herself was experienced in Taijutsu and she could see that it was clearly Nozomi's favored fighting style. Honiko pumped chakra into her arms as she looked into Nozomi's eyes and noticed that the girl had something to prove. It was the same hunger and zeal that her own Master had commented on when he watched her fight. It was that fury that convinced him to bring her into the Truth and grant her greater power and responsibility when it came to the Reordering of the world. Honiko activated her Chakra Enhanced Strength before applying the Cherry Blossom Profusion Palm Technique to both hands increasing the volume and intensity of the chakra on her hands. The size would compensate for Nozomi's increased speed and coordination. The Dragon Sage began blocking rather than dodging her attacks using her chakra swelled fists. The first move was a chop to Nozomi's hand barely cutting off her strike to her solar plexus this while the other arm deftly blocked the rising knee compensating for the girl's increased precision with the size and force of her Chakra imbued hands. Honiko crossed her arms into an X to block the shoulder strike and narrowly inched her head out of the way to avoid the worst of the incoming fist while her raised hands blocked the main force of the punch.

Each strike created a small explosion of chakra and flower petals, a beautiful dance of strength and speed. Honiko was still backing up but now Nozomi was landing blows rather than hitting air. Honiko decided that now was the time to kick it up a notch, she countered Nozomi with a hard sweep kick with enough force that a small gale wind was created. Several leaves were kicked up in the aftermath dancing with the petals that Nozomi had created. She had aimed to sweep the girl off of her feet before launched her into the air with another kick. The force of the strike would be more than enough to send her 10 meters in the air if it connected.

Strength: C -> A [Chakra Enhanced Strength Version Two]
Coordination: B -> A++ [Leaf Great Whirlwind]
Speed: B+

Used:
Strong Fist
Chakra Enhanced Strength Version Two
Cherry Blossom Profusion Palm
Leaf Great Whirlwind

She was doing it, advancing further, pushing Honiko backwards, and actually connecting with her strikes. She either chose not to dodge them, and resorted to blocking her attacks, or she couldn't currently do so. Nozomi was inclined to think the latter, as she noted that Honiko wasn't in that strange form she had been in previously, when they had first encountered each other. Whatever boosts it provided, they weren't currently active it appeared.

Still, connecting with strikes and actually doing damage were two different things. While she was able to make contact, Honiko was no slouch herself, and was quite capable of blocking her attacks or still narrowly avoiding the worst of them. She countered the first palm away, knocking it to the side rather than meeting it with a steady block. She blocked the knee with her own hand, using her chakra as a shield against her strikes. She didn't force an offense yet, as Nozomi was sure she had wanted to see first hand what Nozomi's attack potency was.

Honiko's arms crossed, and Nozomi's shoulder slammed into it, her other arm snaking upwards through the gap for the uppercut to her chin, but she managed to catch the punch in her hands, moving her head out of the way to avoid the knockback hitting her in the face. It was like punching a wall, Honiko's strength matched hers quite well, probably surpassed her as well.

Petals spun around them, Honiko's blocking and deflecting sending showers of Nozomi's petals around them. If she was one to focus on the beauty of the moment, Nozomi would have taken a moment to appreciate it. However, that wasn't the type of fighter she was. The real beauty was Honiko. She was a masterful fighter, easily Nozomi's superior.

And yet, not out of her reach.

It was as if a light shone down on the pale woman, Nozomi could see an aura of radiant splendor around her, but that was all in her head. There was no light, or anything. And then, like that, Nozomi's world inverted, as Honiko went on a beautiful offensive, shifting from defense to offense with such ease that Nozomi only hoped she replicated in her own style. As she went horizontal, the sweep having knocked her feet from under her, she felt a kick connect with her side, knocking the wind out of her as she had been hoping to do to her.

Launched backwards through the air several meters, Nozomi used a few petal shifts to re-orient herself in the proper manner so that when she landed, she could at least catch herself a little bit. Her feet connected with the ground, and while she still skidded backwards, she leaned forward a bit and let herself fall forward until her hands touched the ground as well, placing four points of contact with the surface, letting herself stop the momentum easier.

The strike had hurt, quite a deal. She was still recovering a bit from the fight in the Valley. While her body had healed for the most part, there were still some things that hadn't. Now with that having landed, she wasn't feeling necessarily good, but that was fine. Grimacing, Nozomi squared back up in the Arhat stance as soon as she stopped sliding backwards, and was prepared for the follow up that Honiko may or may not give, albeit with a shortness of breath that betrayed the lack of air intake she was getting at the moment.

The kick connected and it sent Nozomi skidding back a few paces. The girl had done her level best to keep her form and footing which impressed the Dragon Sage. She threw her tomahawk into the dirt and placed a hand in the air signaling for the spar to cease. "Adequate. You are leagues above most genin your age...." she began truthfully. Honiko was not in the habit of lying or belittling her students in order to make a point. "But you still have a long and hard road to walk before you are ready to face our enemies. You will walk this road alone, that is without the Sanbi's help until such time as I am satisfied with your progress" Honiko walked up to Nozomi, entered her personal space and looked at her intently. "Pray with me" she commanded before walking past her and heading towards the ruins on the Isle. She expected Nozomi to follow and she would take the girl to the same place she had taken Raijin. It was there that the Sage would sit down in the lotus position with her hands interlaced in her lap. It was a common meditative stance and it was one she had assumed for many years even before she had met her Master. Honiko did not take Nozomi for a religous girl but she did take her for an obedient disciple. Nozomi was expected to copy Honiko's position and they two would remain there in silent prayer and reflection for an hour before Honiko rose and dismissed her student for the day before attending to her own affairs.

Exit.