That's One Big Gym...

This place was huuuuge! Mae slowly walked up to the Grand Konoha Training grounds with wide eyes. It had only been a couple of months since she started living in… Konogahakuray? Eh, she’d figure out how to pronounce it one of these days. When she spent time being taught at the ninja school she remembered people mentioning this place. This wasn’t the first time she set out on foot to find it, but finally on this third attempt she honed in on her target!

As she entered the grounds she was immediately overstimulated by the different sections and the tools and training and whoa! Where was she supposed to start? Was there a sign-in desk or some sort of service she had to sign up for? Mae frowned at the idea. She always forgets to cancel her free trials. Maybe there was someone around that could give her a tour or something? Oooh, what if there was a pool!?

The member 'Mae' has done the following action : Dice roll

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'Bunny Arrival' :

Kaori arrived at the training grounds, seeing the massive complex for the first time. She had to admit, the building was absolutely impressive. Whistling at how massive it was, she entered the complex and took a look around.

Almost immediately her eyes were drawn to the tall woman who stood there, looking equally impressed at the place. Was it an impressed look? Or overwhelmed. After a moment, Kaori decided it was probably both.

Making her way over to the woman, she looked like she'd make an excellent training partner, so maybe she should snatch her up as quick as possible.

"First time?" Kaori asked, sidling up next to her, giving her a side eye and a smirk. "It's mine too, I can recognize a fish out of water when I see one. I'm kind of new to this village, I'm not from here, you know?"

The member 'Kaori Murai' has done the following action : Dice roll

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'Bunny Arrival' :

Whaa! Mae gasped as a young woman snuck up from behind her! After realizing it was just a regular person and not some sort of monster, she gave a sigh of relief. Mae hadn’t seen any sort of monsters yet, but since she was in a dream, you never knew what could happen. Maybe she worked here, like a front desk lady or something? A moment passed and she said that she was new to the village. Guess not.

The young woman asked if Mae was also new here, and Mae enthusiastically nodded her head. Without any sense of personal boundaries, she would grab this stranger’s hands in companionship. “I am! Did you get hit by a truck too? This place is crazy huh?” Mae would look around not just the training grounds but the village as a whole. “Where are you from?” she would politely ask back.

The member 'Mae' has done the following action : Dice roll

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'Bunny Arrival' :

"Hit by a truck?" Kaori laughed. "No, no. I don't know what that is, I'm just from Iwagakure originally." She rubbed the back of her head, unsure of what to make of that question, but she didn't really need to think all that much about it. It was probably a nothing statement.

"I mean, yeah, the training facility here is pretty great." It was a marvel of engineering, although Kaori didn't really care all that much about it. Iwa had spent so long being oppressed by Konoha over the years that of course they had an impressive village. Iwa had had a lot of catch up to do.

"Do you do a lot of training and stuff? And what sort of skills do you have? I'm mostly a striker." Kaori said, smiling as she began to slowly walk towards a spot further into the training grounds proper. There was no sign in or anything necessary it looked like, and if nobody stopped her, then she was sure she was fine to just claim a spot and start doing some punching practice.

-

The member 'Kaori Murai' has done the following action : Dice roll

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'Bunny Arrival' :

Mae frowned for a moment as her hopes of finding someone similar to her were dashed by this stranger’s response. They had said they were from Iwagashkray, which she assumed was a different location than where they were now. Context clues were an incredibly valuable tool! The athletic-looking girl in front of her began to wonder at the training facility and began to discuss what she was here to train. “Oh yeah this place is wayy bigger than anything I’ve seen before.” Mae shined with a goofy smile as she made small talk. “I’m not quite sure what my specialty is. I used to do a little yoga and kick boxing, but not enough to call it a skill. More like a hobby.” She put her hand up to her chin to think. In movies, detectives and other smart people tended to do that, so she figured it would be good to let the girl know she was thinking. “My body seems pretty indestructible! Does that count as a skill?”

"Indestructible?" Kaori asked, raising an eyebrow. "I mean... can I?" she mimed throwing a punch as to finish her question. "I'd say yoga and kick boxing is skill enough, and if you're really hard to hurt, that's even more so."

So the girl was a tank or a brawler? That meant that she'd be best dispatched by restraining her, not by brute force. Good to know if she ever needed to know such things. Tucking that bit of information away, Kaori awaited the response for whether or not she could test out how durable the girl was. Not that she'd go all out, she wanted to keep her cards up her sleeve, as it was.

The member 'Kaori Murai' has done the following action : Dice roll

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'Bunny Arrival' :

Like most people, the girl she was talking with didn’t immediately buy that her body was indestructible. Mae always needed to prove it to them somehow, but that wasn’t a huge deal to her. After being asked if she could prove her body’s toughness by hitting her, Mae would respond with a grin. “That’s fine by me, on one condition.” she raised up her finger in emphasis. “You have to tell me your name. You can call me Mae!” Although it wouldn’t hurt her at all, it would be nice to at least know the name of the person who was striking her. There was something strangely intimate about letting someone attack you. Not romantic or anything, but you didn’t just let anyone get that close to you right? Something about personal boundaries or whatever. With that declaration, Mae would use her hands to gesture towards her abs. “Alright, lay one on me! Feel free to go all out!” Since coming to the world of ninjas, Mae hadn’t actually been injured and was fairly confident that it was impossible to do so.

One condition? What could that- Oh. Right, Kaori hadn't even bothered to introduce herself yet and she had found herself drawn in by this girl. That was a first. Kaori blushed, embarrassed for a second that she'd forgotten about that aspect of human communication.

"Oh, uh, sorry about that." she said, slightly stammering in her embarrassment. "Lovely name, Mae. I'm Kaori." she said, gathering her bearings again. Okay.

Shifting into her fighting stance, Arhat Fist, Kaori lined up a shot. Since Mae was letting her do this, she took a second to breathe in and out. The stance of Arhat was a strong enough one, but maybe now was the time to add a little extra. She knew the techniques on paper, but hadn't yet used them in a practical sense. Shatter Palm in conjunction with Arhat Fist was known to give a lot of power.

In theory, it was simple enough. Thrust with all your force into one single point and use the power of the stance and the move together. She did so, and WHAM. Her palm slammed into Mae with a significant amount of power behind it. Any lesser Shinobi would have been crumpled. In fact, Mae's ability to stay planted on the ground against the force was likely non existent, and she'd be sent flying backwards several meters from the impact, as she could resist the damage, but couldn't brace downwards significantly.

It was probably that fact that saved Kaori's arm too. If Mae's body remained stationary, it would have been like punching a steel wall, and Kaori would be nursing a broken arm. Luckily, the body had some give. As it was, Kaori's arm was tingling from the impact.

She peered at Mae to see if she had any outward reaction or whether she'd been finally bested and overestimated her ability to withstand a hit.

-
Learned "Shatter Palm" C rank [150/150]
Arhat Fist -1 chakra [Tai reduction]
Shatter Palm -3 Chakra [Tai reduction]

Stats: Strength: D -> C [AF] -> B [SP]
Constitution: D
Stamina: C
Speed: C
Coordination: C
Intelligence: D
Perception: B

It was cute to see Kaori’s face flustered as she introduced herself. Mae was usually the one making a bit of a fool of herself, so it was nice to see someone else in her usual shoes.  After introducing herself, her new friend formed some sort of martial arts stance that reminded Mae of all those movies she watched growing up. Before she could comment on it or ask any questions about the martial art in particular, she was struck. WHAM!

Mae’s feet flew off the ground as her body ragdolled backwards several meters from the point of impact. The feeling of weightlessness as she flew sailed through the air was kind of pleasant, but too brief to be fully enjoyed. Mae’s body crashed into a concrete wall surrounding the edge of the training ground and she could hear the satisfying sound of the wall breaking instead of her body.  After her momentum stopped, Mae would fall back down to the ground, but she was able to catch herself and land on her feet. She would turn around and see a person-shaped imprint in the wall from the blow and grin. “Told ya! See? I’m fine!” Mae grinned and brushed off some dust before doing a quick flex to show that she was uninjured.

Well, she certainly wasn't lying. Kaori had put everything she had into that strike. "I think that hurt me more than it hurt you, Sage be damned." Kaori said, whistling in admiration. "Wish I could be that durable."

Giving Mae a once over, Kaori circled her to see if there was any actual damage. Besides some concrete dust, Mae's fine body was all she could see. "That's some high level durability right there. Even against a Jounin, a solid hit like that is often a massive hit. Well that's impressive as hell."

Of course, that meant the ceiling for her durability likely had nowhere to go from there. "Well, turnabout is fair play, do you want to hit me?" Kaori asked, bracing herself for a blow as well.

Kaori whistled as she looked Mae over and circled around looking for damage. She commented on her durability being nothing to joke at, but didn’t seem to think she was as invincible as Mae thought she was. Were there other people with body’s like hers? She’d have to do some more investigating. Maybe there was some sort of connection between them. They could even be from earth too! Before she could go fully down the rabbit hole that was her brain, Kaori offered for Mae to hit her in return. The pink haired woman raised an eyebrow at this. No one had ever offered the reverse before, but her logic did make sense. She guessed it was technically fair.

“Umm, yeah sure! I don’t think it will be as impressive as what you did though.”

Mae would get into position and hold her hands up like she had learned at her kickboxing classes back on earth. She would twist her body and aim to kick Kaori in the side. After hitting, Mae would immediately rush over and make sure she was okay. “Ah, are you okay?”

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(OOC: Attacked Kaori with a basic D strength kick, no modifiers or nothin')

Kaori grinned and braced herself for the kick. She'd have to be able to withstand hits like she just gave if she was going to make it as a Shinobi. And she wanted to see how strong Mae was. The side kick came in, and Kaori braced with her arm and knee, feeling the strike dissipating between the two limbs. Okay, she was about as strong as an unstanced Kaori, good to know, good to know. A kick like that wouldn't put her down if she hadn't blocked it, but it wouldn't have felt good.

Definitely not as strong as her monstrous durability though, and her speed wasn't anything to write home about either. It was so slow to Kaori that she was sure she could dodge at any moment she wanted to. Unless she was holding back? But Mae didn't strike Kaori as the type to do so, she'd just seen how hard she could hit, so what would the point be, right?

"Alright, if that's where you're starting at, then I think you've got a solid foundation. Maybe your focus should be on learning how to hit harder and faster? How's your ability to clock speeds?" Kaori asked, launching a couple of full speed jabs in the air, shadow boxing for a moment.

Mae’s kick had landed successfully, but Kaori didn’t seem to be too injured by it. On one hand, this was a huge relief, because hurting someone doesn’t usually go hand in hand with making them your friend. But on the other hand, she felt a bit embarrassed that her attack wasn’t as ‘POW’ and ‘WHAM’ as Kaori’s was.  They seemed to think Mae was at a good foundation though, which she remembered from watching those house makeover shows was a good thing! Gotta have a strong foundation or those walls will fall apart when the stormy season hits. Or something like that. Maybe it was floods actually that were worrisome if you had a bad foundation. Regardless! Mae didn’t need to worry about those natural disasters!

“My ability to clock speeds?” Mae repeated and threw out a couple of punches. One, two…. She thought to herself. Punch, punch, punch. Three, four five.

“I think I can clock them pretty well. I just punched five times!” she held her hand out with all five fingers extended. What did that have to do with speed though? Wait a minute…

"Uhm, no, I mean like, can you track my movement easily, or is it hard to?" Kaori asked. Mae wasn't the brightest lantern in the fleet, that was for sure, but she was endearing enough. She couldn't help but smile at Mae. Normally she'd get a bit frustrated with her, but she wasn't at the moment at least. It gave her someone to teach and she wouldn't have to pretend to be an idiot.

Or hold back, because she could take the hits. And they were all so weak to her that she wouldn't know the difference between full force or not.

"Like, I'm not super fast or anything, or strong really. I'm just able to do that because I know body mechanics. And no, not like machines, I mean like martial arts."

Kaori patiently explained what she meant with a warm smile, and Mae’s face grew a bit red with embarrassment. “Ooh, that’s what you meant. Sorry, I have trouble following things sometimes.” Mae apologized and quickly got distracted by a buzzing fly that flew by her head. The fly crossed path with Kaori again and Mae shifted her attention back to the conversation she was having. “To answer your question, its a bit complicated. I can ‘follow’ your attacks as in that I know that you’re making an attack. But I have no idea what you’re doing until it actually hits me. Actually, even then I’m not really sure.” She thought back to the attack earlier and remembered the martial arts stance Kaori had taken. “I definitely recognized that you were using martial arts. Did you hit me with a punch earlier?” Mae tried to compare and contrast the actual real life experience that just happened with her to the movies and comics she had read growing up. They were definitely related, but probably not a one for one replica.

"Okay, so yeah, you just need to train your brain and perception." Kaori laughed. "Yeah, I punched you earlier. There's a martial art called Arhat Fist, and it lets me use pretty much every ounce of strength I have just from standing properly. I don't know if you'd get the same benefit without being trained in Taijutsu like me, but I can teach you a little about it if you want?"

She let her arms hang loosely, bouncing back and forth on each foot so that she could get some of her energy out. Now that she'd punched something, a part of her wanted to just keep punching. It was always hard for her to stop until something dropped, but Mae wasn't even fazed by the earlier hit so what would she get out of it other than catharsis?

"We could spar. You try and hit me and I dodge and hit as much as I can. You'll get faster and adjust to my speed, and I'll get stronger and faster."

Training her brain was always something that exhausted Mae just by thinking about it. She couldn’t help herself from exhaling with disappointment when it was mentioned. Kaori began to explain a martial art called the arhat fist, which sounded pretty sweet! There were some concerns on whether or not Mae would be able to learn it properly, but there was no harm in giving it a shot! “I’d love to try if you’re okay with teaching me the basics. So I just have to stand properly and then punch super hard? I can give that a go.”

Kaori explained the basics of sparring to her, and it seemed like a classic way that heroes gained power in montages like the comics! Besides potentially getting embarrassed by her lack of skills, it seemed like there was nothing to lose by giving this a shot too! “Alright, we can spar! So we just keep hitting each other until one of us calls time out or something? I’m ready whenever you are!” she grinned and positioned herself in what she thought was a classic martial arts pose.

"Okay, take this stance." Kaori demonstrated the Arhat style. While Mae could learn it with some ease, she'd never truly master it until gaining mastery of Taijutsu. It would provide her a moderate increase to her strength while using it, but also took more energy than Kaori used since she wasn't as efficient.

Kaori took great pleasure in correcting her form. Shifting her stance every so often. "Wider. Wider. Too wide.

Eventually its perfect enough. Suitable even.

With that, they could begin the spar. "You can begin, I'm faster. she said.

Mae did her best mimicking her new friend’s stance, but found herself getting constantly distracted while doing so. How was she able to move her legs like that? Maybe she did stretches? You’d have to do them every day in order to not cramp. Did they have yoga in this world, or at least something similar? They had to, it was like a martial art right? Mae continued adjusting her stance until she stood in the way that Kaori indicated. She was then given the go-ahead to start the spar. “Alright, let’s do this!” Mae would drop low and aim to do a sweeping kick across the ground and then rise into an uppercut, aiming for Kaori’s chin. Mae had seen enough martial art movies and played enough games to know that this was a solid opener. She would need to start naming her attacks so she could yell them as she performed them. That’s what true martial masters did.

Simple enough start to their match. A sweep of the legs came, and Kaori jumped over it, clearing the sweep, lashing out with a kick of her own, using Mae as a springboard to bounce off of and gain a couple of feet of distance. Her uppercut would soar into the spot where she had occupied a moment before as Kaori landed with a small slide.

Interesting enough of a start, Mae wasn't as incompetent at fighting as she'd though, or at least she had some rudimentary training. The attack was well executed, but to her eyes, it was horrendously slow, and her body could easily perform the maneuvers with time to spare, although she kept it right ahead of Mae's own speed, so she was clearly faster, but not going as fast as she could.

"Nice, nice." she muttered, clearly zoning into the fight. She launched forward, shifting into the Arhat Fist style again. She didn't bother using any other maneuvers on top of that, just increasing her striking power as she aimed to drive her fist into the solar plexus of her opponent.

-
Arhat Fist -1

Stats: Strength: D -> C [AF]
Constitution: D
Stamina: C
Speed: C
Coordination: C
Intelligence: D
Perception: B