A Mediocre Training Encounter

Auri had chosen this time for a particular reason, it was the result of countless research by walking around and watching other shinobi around her age to see when was the most popular time to get training done. Sure she had to pretend to be a fangirl so that it didn't make anyone suspicious but so far so good and she now knew exactly when the training field was the most crowded. With that she had equipped her gear and had set out to "train" not to hard or to light but just a normal amount of training. Now all she needed to do was find a partner so that she didn't seem like one of those try hard who trained by themselves trying to reach a new level or something. No she was content where she was at making predictable gains and mastering them just enough that she seemed like a normal kunoichi. "Hopefully I don't run into those prodigies that seem to be coming out of the wood works this generation. Ugh why couldn't I be born a little earlier it's like some how it was determined that shinobi my age would be the ones to user in a new era...so troublesome. Auri thought to herself while scanning her surroundings in search of a potential training buddy.

OOC: Hope you don't mind if I jump in for a dual training. I can't solo train for about 2 weeks.

Indra had found himself in Hakagakure of all places. It was no wonder this place was called the village hidden in the graves or whatever it went by. The entire place felt like one, giant, oppressive tomb. His mother had dragged him along on a trip to visit one of her friends in the Hakagakure division of the Erlang clan. She claimed it would be a good idea to get Indra out into the Republic, to see some of the other villages and shinobi in them. Of course, rather than a boring day in the Erlang compound, she had shooed him away to the training grounds.
Idle shinobi make for Datara's playthings. His mother had instructed him, a phrase that had practically been tattooed into his brain at this point. With a sigh, he had accepted the hefty scroll of techniques he was to practice and learn while she spent a lovely afternoon with her friend wining and dining.

Now among the other shinobi in the training grounds, Indra found himself in a foul mood. He knew there'd be consequences for not completing each and every task or technique on the scroll, but he was tired of his mother's constant training sessions. Lazily, he slapped away with a sheathed sword at one of the training dummies on the edge of the grounds. Around him the air was filled with chatter and the orchestra of young shinobi beating the snot out of each other in the name of training.

Auri would continue to walk around the training area scoping out the area to ensure whether she could find an average shinobi to spar with and maybe cement her image of not being a noteworthy kunoichi. Which was why when she lost track of time and accidentally stumbled upon someone using a sheathe sword to slap at the training dummy. Now normally she would stick around to watch longer from a distance, it gave a nice fangirl stalker vibe to her however she had walked pretty close and thus decided a tactical retreat would be in order rather than risk stumbling on one of those "prodigy" types. Granted people like her didn't pick up weapons more advanced than a kunai till after chunin mostly relying on shuriken or kunai but this one had a sword, which either meant he was capable of using it or he was one of those who thought using a sword was cool. However upon seeing his face seeing as she was about a dozen feet in front of him she would recognize that he had heterochromia which make her inwardly nope the fuck out. "No! My normalcy I need to run away" Auri thought to herself flinching back and attempting to turn on her heel and sneak away. Alas she was foiled by stepping on a small pebble and promptly tripping and almost landing on her face, knowing the gig was up she would just lie on the ground after all she had been...noticed.

For the first time in some time Mei knew what she wanted to get done that day. She had been worried her mixed heritage could have caused some problem, but it turned out she was just being held back to get a clearer grasp on her abilities. Now she had been given the go ahead and the basics. She didn't like the public training grounds, but she needed to focus not on beating others, but just learning hand to hand. Less prodigies, the better really. Not that she wasn't in that catagory too, but it was better getting the basics against normal people when she was using normal moves. Having left her sword at home, wanting to discourage it's use, she kept her hair tied up in to buns. She entered the area just in time to see one such girl fall. And with a roll of her eyes she moved over in offering to help her up. "Are you ok? That was some fall. Nobody tripped you did they?"

Auri would look upward and smile at the person offering to help her up, not a lot of people who tried to be shinobi were nice so she had to be one of the people like herself, middle ground nothing to be upset about or try to overcompensate for. Demiurge... why have you forsaken me." she thought to herself when she ran into yet another person with heterochromia. Still there was no use panicking she would have to simply deal with the potential fall out of this situation. "No, no one tripped me. I just turned wrong. I'm kind of clumsy sometimes ahah.." she said taking the offered hand and dusting herself off when she eventually got up trying to play off her horror at the situation as embarrassment. She would get a better look at the kunoichi before her and would note all of the physical traits and noting that she had the typical look of a main character. In her experience anyone who had eyes like that clearly had some freaky eye powers going on, now it didn't have to be a dojutsu or whatever but seeing as one of her eyes was red while the other wasn't. She knew of only one clan with eyes like that and just being a member was enough to elevate someone from mediocre to above average.

Indra could feel someone approaching him as he "trained", swatting at the straw-filled dummy before him. He didn't pay much attention to them however, after all it was a training grounds, people were bound to not mind their personal space or accidentally move into his area. It happened, life went on. However, when the girl suddenly tripped and fell to the floor, he instinctively turned around. In truth, he didn't much care if someone got hurt, he wasn't heartless, he just didn't know any of these people and as a result, they meant little to him. Unfortunately, his mother's training had kicked in and now here he was, staring at a fallen girl and getting himself involved in something he had no business being a part of.

He took a reluctant step forward to help the fallen kunoichi, when another one appeared seemingly out of thin air. This caused Indra to pause and observe the two as the newcomer offered a hand to the one on the ground. He regarded them with a shrug and began to turn back to his beaten and battered dummy before pausing. There was something strange about this new girl and he realized it was her eyes. Although his colorblindness prevented him from seeing the trademark red of a Mishura branch Erlang in her eye, he recognized that specific shade of grey anywhere, because it was his shade of grey.
You're an Erlang. Indra said in a tone caught somewhere between a question and a statement.

"I'm a Suisho," Mei's answer was simple. Like her really. Whilst it wasn't the exact truth it was still half way there in her correction. "Mei," The continuation came simply as her way of introduction. Once she got a look at him though she became a little more curious. His eyes mirrored hers. Perhaps the first time she had seen this in someone her own age. She took a peek over, "So, you're a sword fighter like me then? Not today any way, I needed to work on hand to hand. How about you?" She turned to the non-Erlang she had helped up.

Auri would watch the two of them talk to each other, when she had gotten up before she was nervous at the situation she found herself in. However when the boy walked over she knew that the Demiurge had truly forsaken her at least until he completely bypassed her to talk to Mei. She had taken the window of opportunity to try and sneak away however she found herself drawn back into the conversation and would plaster a small smile on her face. "Uh I could do with some taijutsu practice myself, I'm not that good at it really but I want to do my best." she said looking from Mei to the boy with the sword. She wondered whether she could use this as an opportunity to condition her body a bit, while she knew she would never amount to anything more than average she knew that the secret to a long life is having enough physical conditioning to escape from situations of danger. One thing was for sure, the two of them represented the higher end of the shinobi spectrum so if she sparred with them she could use that as a benchmark of what to avoid or at least last against long enough to run away.

Training Info:

Indra opened his mouth to correct Mei when she claimed to be a Suisho, but thought better of it. Instead, he pulled out the scroll his mother had given him and scanned over it before letting out a sigh of hot air, As far as my mother is concerned, looks like I can take my pick. I've got some ninjutsu on here, some kenjutsu, He regarded his sheathed blade with a frown, truth be told though I'm a bit tired of practicing kenjutsu for the moment. Oh, here we go, she wants me to improve my reaction time. He shrugged and rolled the scroll up once more, placing it in his back pocket and clipping his sheathed sword back onto his waist. If you two are going to be practicing taijutsu and I need to practice dodging...you can hit me if you want? Indra offered, as if it was the simplest thing in the world, It couldn't hurt to get some more practice in with my Raidengan anyway.

OOC:

Auri would stare at him oddly when he said that the two of them could practice their taijutsu by hitting him and figured that he had a good reason to be that confident. Either way it would probably be best if she made the first move and started things off lest these two start off at a level she couldn't hope to match. As a result she would shift her body into a rough fighting stance making sure to put her hands up and not leave too many things vulnerable. She would take quick couple of breaths to psyche herself up for fighting someone else and then would move over at normal running speed and throw out a simple combo. She would punch out with her right hand before dropping down lower to go for a leg sweep and if she managed to land it she would back off. If her first two attacks missed she would turn with the motion and throw out a back elbow which would hopefully catch him off guard enough to make him wary of a follow-up. All in all it was some pretty basic and amateur looking stuff that wasn't nearly as polished as a real technique would be but it was enough for her at least to get her blood pumping and what not.

Training:

Indra smiled as the meek looking one suddenly got serious, Whoa. Okay. Hey there. That was a close one. He said, expertly dodging each of her strikes. He sidestepped her right punch, did a quick jump over the leg sweep and nearly tripped backwards as he attempted to lean away from the elbow strike. He could feel it brush past his training gi, narrowly missing his ribs. Indra dropped back, disengaging from Auri with a smile wide enough it threatened to split his face in two. Her speed hadn’t been enough to warrant him activating his Raidengan, relying entirely on his Cyper reaction skills. He didn’t care though, that was the most fun he had had in awhile and that was all that mattered to him in the moment. With a slight chuckle he said, Wow, you almost caught me with that elbow there. I obviously need to do some more sparring. Boy, I didn’t know it was possible to have fun while training. This is great!

Auri wouldn't be discouraged both because she knew it was a long shot that she'd be able to catch him off guard and also because of his mood when she tried to hit him, he really thought it was fun which eased her tension and she'd smile a bit. Now with that she would turn her body so that she was facing in front of him and this time she would move towards him before throwing out the arm which she hadn't tried to elbow him with at academy level speed. Dirt, some sand and small pebbles would fly out as while she was turning she had used her other hand to scoop the ground so she could have something up her sleeve in case he was lying about not fighting back. "Pocket Sand!" she cried out as she did such ruining the surprise from what she was intending but at the same time the absurdity of it could actually make him lower his guard in shock which would be perfect as she sped up to genin level speed and circling around him to deliver a jumping knee to his back. If it landed then she'd probably bowl him over and end up on his back in the perfect position to start wailing away, not that she'd do that because this was a spar, but if he dodged well she would be thrown off and almost tumble to the ground before shakily regaining her footing.

Training:

Indra tracked her movements easily enough, smiling as she continued to engage with him. Perhaps today would actually turn our alright, at least until his mother returned to take him home. Then however, he heard the girl say something that caught him by surprise, Wait wha- he managed before course sand and dirt bombarded his eyes. It was strange really, he was able to see her other arm come up to eye level. In almost slow motion he watched he hand open and particles of dirt, sand and small stones near him in a beautiful spread of eye pain. However, he was so surprised by the sneak attack that, although his body was urging him to move or close his eyes, his brain wasn’t quite able to process just what was going on. As a result, like a deer in headlights, Indra simply stared as the cloud of earth bombarded his eyesight. Ack, bleh! He said, wiping the sand from his eyes and spitting it from his lips. It was too late however, as a knee pressed into his back, forcing him to the ground.

Hey, that was a dirty tricky! He said in a tone that initially sounded annoyed. He placed his hands beneath him and pushed off with academy level strength. Unless Auri was holding onto him with anything stronger, she’d at the very least be knocked off his back. Should she be, Indra would stand and brush himself off then chuckle and say, I’ll have to remember that for next time. If Auri were on the ground after he attempted to push her off, he’d offer her a hand to get back to her feet.

"I had no intent to use my dojutsu today, but I suppose if I'm using them against someone who also has them," Mei might not have been the most comfortable with her eyes still, but it didn't mean she didn't activate both the Itsugan and the Kyougan to use against the other Erlang. She made use of the distraction to prepare herself, knowing that they would have some form of chakra sensory, but from the looks of his eyes he wouldn't be able to see (requires B-rank sensory or C- heat), but then she was set. With C speed she was rushing forward, swinging herself around with a sharp kick to take advantage of the 'pocket sand' looking to dislocate his arm along with her backing C strength.

Spoiler:

Auri would be pushed off of him shaking her head a bit as her trickery managed to get him for only a bit before he decided enough was enough and flexed his muscles so to speak. However her eyes would widen when Mei's eyes activated and she would speed up causing Auri to point in shock her mouth not working to warn him of the incoming blow other than the pointing finger. If he got hit well that would probably take the friendly nature of the spar away since the kick that the other girl was using seemed to be really polished as if it was a taijutsu technique meant for really hurting someone. At least that was just her assumption but still, any sort of blow could hurt when done at high levels of speed especially since at their core they were still kind of squishy kids. Well maybe not them but she was definitely a squishy person, her skin wasn't like the rumored iron or whatever it was that allowed some humans to get hit by a boulder and just laugh it off.

Training:

The jonin who was watchikg them would body flicker in and quickly inform them that the chunin exams were starting tomorrow amd all participants were required to meet up with their jonin sensei and make the trip to Nazogakure. Once he said that he would body flicker away leaving them where they were training over and done with.

Training Over: