Get up to get down

[Eishi]

"I see them coming this way!" I yelled down to my spear at the bottom of the mountain peak. I was slightly out of breath having to come up and down this damned height over and over again, but there was nothing for it. This peak had a fun reputation for being resistant to chakra and I was already down an arm making the trek up with shit on my back almost unbearable.

"Remember, Yuukin has does it one leg, one arm. The girl can just do two arms. Gotta make sure they don't think this is too easy!" I yelled down again. I wasn't going to let that soft-hearted bitch give these guys any leeway. Yukiin, I already knew was competent and the girl did alright in the last class. I kinda felt like that class with her had been rushed in all honesty, so I guess this was gonna be a better marker for her. Either way, it was just a matter of time before the two of them got here. We were only in the middle of a mountain range, so the journey was already half the class pretty much.

"Is that really necessary? I know two-handed climbing is already a taught drill, but dropping weapons on them seems excessive!" She yelled back up so I could hear. Again with her showing her soft-hearted nature when it came to students and kids. She really needed to buck the fuck up. Too soft for being a metal weapon, that's for sure. It made me want to vomit and I hated when I vomited. Too many gut punches bringing up bad memories to ever really like it.

"Oh shut up, already! If I made my classes soft, kids would walk all over me. Why do you think you're normally the teacher? You really think I'm that lucky at our coin flip?! I don't wanna deal with kids giving me funny looks because I'm twelve teaching their stupid asses the ABC's of being good at their jobs!" I yelled back down. After about a minute of waiting for her reply, I relaxed. Whatever I muttered in indifference. I still had a couple minutes from what I could guess and I'd use thinking things over. My spear was here to greet them, anyway.

OOC Eishi, Spear-chan

 

[Byakko Yukiin]

"One arm, one leg huh? Brought too many then..." Yukiin remarked, Tsurara drapped over him and each of its limbs dangling out to make the count clearer. He looked upwards towards the boy who seemed to have turned up once again, although their relationship seemed as odd as it always was and he was no closer to puzzling it out. He didn't know why they were yelling though, he couldn't catch the entire conversation but it wasn't like he was born without ears and shouting down a mountain was a great way to attract unwanted attention. The boy up there must've been quite confident in himself to either not consider the possibility or to consider it not worth care...perhaps he was a Jonin or the like. Hard to say...hard to say...

He yawned, stretching out his body and adjusting his gloves. "Don't suppose puppet arms are freebies? It’ll be hard to divide them up if only one set of limbs is permissible between all of us."

[WC 168]

 

[Sato Yuji]

Kei sighed as she was forced to head back out into the snowy depths of the Spine of the World. It seemed that because she had come out of a class with Cig and Spear with minimal injuries whoever was in charge of class assignments had decided that she would be taking more classes with them. She was dressed in a similar way that she had been for the first class but this time she was wearing more protective armor. Kei wasn’t taking that chances with her health. As she trudged back out she waved brightly at the same group of people she had passed the first time around. At least she knew what she was looking for so it was much easier to find the correct meeting spot. The instructions had said to meet in front of some cliff face, so she could guess what was going to happen.

Laughing she ran up to the other familiar scent. “Yuki!” she exclaimed happily attaching herself to the other boy. “Yuki is taking another class with Kei!” she said grinning up at the older bo. “Kei is so happy.” As she talked at him she used one of her hands to wave at Spear “Spear’s partner still stinks.” she said solemnly to the thing before turning back to looking at Yuki. “Kei thinks we are going to have to climb the thing in front of us. Kei doesn’t want to do that so Yuki should carry her.”
----
[246/1500]

 

[Eishi]

“No,” I answered Yukiin, appearing next to my spear in a puff of smoke, not bothering to hide my presence this class around,

“Feel free to use them to defend yourself, but the climbing is on you,” I said, my clone bursting away as my weapon spirit took over from where I left off.

“Yukiin, you’ll be taking the advanced course. One arm, one leg are what you are allowed to use in your trek up. Kei you will have the standard two handed climb. Feel free to take a ride up on Yukiin back, but know he’ll get no extra credit and you’ll fail the class. No one is forcing either of you to be here,” my spear spoke with enough conviction it seemed, but she still had a ‘niceness’ to her tone that I wished she’d cast away, already. She really needed to get over herself, and the high horse she seems to think she possess.

“Feel free to start whenever, the journey to the top may seem short, but the climb will defiantly feel long,” she commented as she took a step to the side and gave the two aspiring shinobi free reign to begin their task upwards. She was there to catch them if they fell, but I knew just from the look in her eye that she was hoping her job was unnecessary. Always seemed to be her MO ever since I nearly killed that one girl.

 

[Byakko Yukiin]

He shrugged, gesturing to the puppet already on top of him, giving a glance to the kunochi who seemed to be an impossible thing to remove once she'd decided to attach herself. "No room for additional passengers and failure seems like you wasted your time even showing up in any case."

Yukiin yawned, cracking his knuckles and allowing a set of claws to emerge from his fingertips, ice and bone entwined together to form them in a strange union, as he pressed on and pierced the stone face with one hand's worth of them. It had been a fairly recent development, something had stirred he guessed, deep within that brought previously repressed traits to the surface and he was adopting things that made him much more....animalistic. He didn't like it but at least it was just claws for now, he sincerely hoped it didn't include ears or a tail in future as he simply wouldn't know what to do with them. It also came with a strange warming, as if something rooted around his heart was melting away, and while it made him uncomfortable to be less dulled to the outside sensations of the world it came with really neat claws so he couldn't complain much.

"One hand will be sufficient. It can only be used for climbing, correct?" His free hand made a few exemplary handseals to get his point across, although he didn't really wait for an answer as he threw himself up with his right arm a few times. It wasn't a complicated motion, just a tiring one. Sheathe claws, throw arm up, redeploy claws, catch, hold, and then repeat. His legs weren't really involved in the process beyond being part of the bodily effort to throw himself upwards. Yukiin suspected he was supposed to use it to brace himself but it was a waste of energy, if he fell then he'd catch himself, that was the least of his concerns at the moment - falling was the easiest thing he could do, after all.

[WC 338]

 

[Sato Yuji]

Pouting Kei released the older boy while making a face at the people who had ruined her fun. There had been a more selfish reason for her wanting to be carried. That reason was she was basically blind and while it rarely stopped her from doing anything it did cause problems when she was assigned certain tasks, for example, climbing a rock face. It wasn't that she couldn't do it just that it wasn't the easiest thing for her to do. That compounded with the fact that she didn't trust their teacher not to throw something crazy at them made her think this class was going to be a nasty one for her.

Listening to Yuki throw his way up the cliff gave Kei an idea on how to go up it while also protecting herself. Kei could track people by their unique signatures and sometimes those signatures lingered on the places they had been. The more times she was in contact with someone, or the better she knew them, the easier they were to track. In the case of Yuki, she had spent quite a bit of time with him which meant she could "see" where he had been. Letting him get ahead of her she approached the wall where he had started and began to follow directly in his path. Her ascent was much slower than Yuki's considering her handicap. She had to feel out each handhold, then test it to make sure it could take her weight. People tended to underestimate how much eyesight was used in climbing looking for hold or opportunistic jumps.

Climbing slowly she grimaced a few times when stones rained down on her head. Yuki was kicking up some loss rocks and having her follow behind him meant she was where they landed. At least if anything came over the top of the cliff Yuki was going to catch it before it got to her.
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[568/1500]
[WC:322]

 

[Eishi]

I saw them coming up fast enough. Yukiin was taking a hell of a risk trying to climb that way, but it was a fair choice if he was going to come up one armed. Generally, you'd always want to keep three points of contact at any time, but digging your fingers in was fair enough. I was quick to respond as I pulled out three shurikens and dropped them from my hands. They didn't waste any time corrected themselves midair with a little willful shove on my part to begin their spinning descent. I was careful to make sure they landed directly on Yukiins positon right as he jumped. Giving the distance I knew they'd come into contact right as he clung himself back to the wall. Maybe he'd fall sooner than expected and hurt his pride on the way down, I could only be so lucky in that case. It wasn't like I was giving him any warning as I dropped them, so who knew?

As for Kei, It seemed she was having a lot more trouble with the exercise. Though, maybe that was a good thing for her. Nothing like being thrown out of your element to light a fire under your ass. That thought made me think of something for later as I dropped a half-dozen brick aimed right for her head. She was ascending at a bit slower a pace following up Yukiin's rear. I wasn't about to let a slacker coast, no way in hell. Then again, I wasn't going to be letting the leader get up too quickly, either. I had a reputation to uphold as an overbearing teacher and I planned to defend it, venomously.

"Mind your head," My weapon spirit said below the two, giving them the only warning they were going to get as I stared daggers at my traitorous weapon. I hoped they appreciated spoilers as little as I did, smh.

 

[Byakko Yukiin]

"Mind yours."

Yukiin responded back, the hand not climbing making a few fluid twitching motions small and slight enough to look erratic to non-puppeteers, as it was their misfortune to look like they had hand localized seizures if they were halfway decent at their craft as to not require grandiose motions. Tsurara turned its head with a vicious purpose, its limbs flashing out as the shinobi directed the flow of iced chakra through his strings, the weapon's claws glistening with refreshed luster as they cut back at the projectiles with the puppeteer's eyes turned to ensure they were properly aimed back at the thrower. They dug into the puppet's claws with the kind of rotational force that gave him some pause, punching into them in ways that they should not have been capable. What was it that was special about these things? His ice should've been near impenetrable, hard as steel, but Tsurara's claws were cracked and penetrated as it threw them back.

"That shouldn't be possible..." He mumbled, examining the puppet's claws before pushing his foot into the wall, similar claws emerging from it and gouging into the stone as he used his climbing hand to turn the puppet's hands over for examination, although a brief one. Chipped, not an illusion like he might've guessed...but the ice was harder than actual metals, even accounting for rotational force he'd pushed back with as much force as it was thrown with, at least he thought, so why was it still so...energetic? Something else was at play but he didn't time to really puzzle it at the moment. Tsurara's claws simply fell off like discarded shark teeth and new ones sprouted, molding and forming from the air into the vicious ice they needed to be as Yukiin resumed climbing, now with his foot employed. He had been hoping to keep that one as an ace in the hole but oh well, what was the worst he could do?

The boy down there was playing with him, that wasn't as hard as he could throw and Yukiin was playful back because that wasn't the worst thing he could've done in response, but he presumed this was a measuring stick. Why he felt the need to measure him when he'd surpassed all previous measurements was beyond him, maybe the instructor just didn't like his face much. Who could really say? It seemed doubtful he'd stop playing games though because killing people was frowned upon so the worry wasn't too extreme.

"You've chipped a nail, how rude of you. We work hard on those."

[WC 433]

 

[Sato Yuji]

Kei made a face as the scent of Cigarettes got stronger. It seemed their teacher was about to do something nasty to them. The same thing happened when Kei had run into the clones in the last lesson. Hearing a whistling in the air Kei sighed, was their teacher five, dropping things over the edge of a cliff was a childish thing to do. It didn’t matter if the things could qualify as weapons. It was a good thing that he had dropped the first ones on Yuk, it gave Kei a sense of what Cig was aiming for when he dropped them. From the screech of metal on ice, she had to assume he was aiming for their heads. That actually made her job easier.

When she heard something drop slightly off from where the first whistle had come from she assumed that it was aimed at her. Instead of deflecting it like Yuki did she dodged, using her legs she propelled herself up and to the right of her original position. Instead of trying to grab the wall with her hands she decided to give up on that little exercise and instead used her knives to dig into the wall. When they didn’t go in as far as they should have she frowned. She had enhanced her blade with chakra which should have made the cut through the rock smooth, given the strength she had to put behind it the chakra had failed, one plus one was not equaling two. Quickly channeling chakra into her had she placed it against the rock and felt the unpleasant sensation of an oil slick on water.

Kei looked up and shouted, “Kei thinks Cig is just being mean now!” Really he couldn’t have picked a class that was more tailored to Kei’s weaknesses. Deciding on a new plan of action Kei grinned as an idea came to her. Grabbing her blade she used her feet to create a triangle with her body to the wall. Grabbing her other blade attached to her waist she channeled chakra into her arm making sure not to touch the wall and threw the blade up into the wall. When she heard the sound of it thudding into the wall she grabbed the chain between the two testing it for hold strength. Deciding it could take her weight she withdrew the blade she was holding onto and began the climb the chain like a rope with her feet braced against the wall. Whenever something came close to falling onto her she simply swung away from it. As she reached the blade she had thrown she simply repeated the exercise.
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[1,011/1500]

 

[Eishi]

A loud high pitched noise came from down below the two as my weapon spirit blew the whistle and threw a kunai right next to Kei's head and pointed another one in her hand at the girl.

"No using your legs," She said in an almost bored voice as she continued to read her damned smut. I was regretting showing her that stuff more and more every day. She put it down for a moment as she yelled up at the young girl.

"Only warning I'm allowed to give you, next one will hit you in your hands and you'll have to start over or give up," She finished as she went back to her book. I took that moment to drop a few more weapons on top of our two students. This time I decided to step it up a notch and dropped my spiked dodecahedrons over the cliff's edge as I cast [Magnetic Control] onto the four of them. Two whizzed on down as they went buzzing around Yukiin while the other two hovered about waiting for when or if I needed them, as if mocking him for a moment before also going in for the kill. He always did seem like the difficult type, but at least he was competent. Probably serve him longer than most I figured as my balls of death went for his puppet's limbs along with any exposed regular limbs I could spot from this angle. I just needed to try to knock him off, after all. I had all the advantages and he was a restricted target. Then again this was only a single weapon in my arsenal and it wasn't even my best hand. I'd hope he'd be able to overcome this, else I'd be disappointed.

"Halfway up is where the real test begins!" I yelled down as my balls swarmed him as I dropped two stun based explosively wrapped kunai down to the resident princess for today's lesson. I could only smile as I watched them explode a couple meters from her position. They wouldn't do any real damage, but the entire point was just to make them fall, and I figured a nice loud sound only meters from your face when you're already super sensitive, seemed like the perfect amount of 'fuck you' to go around. For good measure, I let two more magnetically charged shurikens slip from my hands as they went for her clinging hands. Gotta make sure no one say I make easy classes.

 

[Sato Yuji]

Kei was beginning to get very annoyed as Spear called out to her not to use her feet. Removing her feet from the wall she instead tangled her legs with the chain and squirmed her way up. She was halfway up her second throw when the next unpleasant thing happened to her. It seemed Cig had been distracting himself with Yuki while she was making her progression up the mountain. She knew something was coming when she felt a stab of something down her spine. That was the only warning she got before a powerful noise went off next to her head. That took Kei by surprise, she was already sensitive to noise and having a bang go off next to her head threw her off enough for her hands slip off the chain.

This action would have been a lot more damaging if Spear hadn't told her she couldn't use her legs against the wall. When she fell her tangled legs acted as a catch. Instead of ending up halfway down the mountain she simply ended up hanging upside down. The shurikens that had been aimed at her hands missed because, well, her hands weren't exactly where they were supposed to be. Shaking her head trying to get the ringing from her ears she used her, no small amount of, agility to swing herself back up so she could start climbing again. It took her few tries, the bang had messed up her balance as well, but she eventually got it. She made sure her legs were still securely tangled. While she moved up to tried to suppress her hearing some. Normally it was turned up as high as she could go, but right now that was hurting her. Instead, she tried to channel it all into feeling. She hated to think what Cig had in store for them as she reached the halfway point. This was already difficult enough for her. She had to wonder how much trouble she would get in if she decided to throw their teacher off the side of the mountain. It's not like he would die or anything, Spear would probably catch him.
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[1,371/1500]

 

[Byakko Yukiin]

Seemed like he wanted to make things a bit more difficult, angling to try and damage his equipment further likely because of an exposed weakness, but also not launching the full volley as the projectiles seemed to making full use of their unique abilities. Once more there were no visible strings and no implementation of Kugutsu but it didn't matter how it was occurring at the exact moment, what mattered is that he needed to shield himself and also knock linger projectiles off as well. Yukiin was more concerned about the girl, but since she'd dropped a bit to escape her own volleys, that left him safe to do something that had a bit more...reach. His hands didn't need to move for this one, so he just kept on climbing as it formed.

The slight sheen and shimmer in the air as his surroundings were the only indicator before the diving projectiles were snagged in a dome of ice, thin to be sure but that was its function after all. Forming around the spinning ones it captured them momentarily before the ice dome crushed them to continue forming, a brief crunch of metal and sparks as he found himself relieved that if he inflicted enough raw force, he won out. However the formation was temporary and once it had done its work burst outwards in a porcupine-like hail of shards, crashing into the waiting vultures that the instructor had left for him and scattering many more shards across the mountain's face.

He took his opening when he got it though, with the freshly produced hand holds Yukiin accelerated his climb, swinging his body from the punctured shards up the stone face until he'd eclipsed their spread and resumed his normal climb, taking the advantage of the speed boost to hopefully avoid any little metal buzzards he'd somehow forgot or miscalculated for, not that he was going to look down to see.

[WC 322]

 

[Eishi]

Yukiin was doing as well as I expected of him as he dipped, dived and dodged my death balls all the way up the face of the mountaintop. He even made some good time as he hauled ass up the mountainside. I hadn't relented on him so far, and the further he went up the trek, the faster my metal came in from all sides. The second Yukiin made it to the top, my four balls went and descended on Kei's position. They went about harassing and poking at her hands and body without remorse now. She hadn't made as fast a climb, seeming to be content with a more methodical approach to her climb. There was merit in that, for sure, but I knew how to punish slow play. I did the same thing I had done with Yukiin, increasing the speed and tempo of my attacks as she made her way up. She needed to stop playing already and show some real tenacity. I wasn't going to let her up without seeing some spark determination in those eyes. Regardless, for all the cuts and bruises she was receiving, none of it would be present after I healed them up, anyway, so a little pain wasn't too much to ask.

"Good climb," I said to Yukiin as I placed a hand on his shoulder and healed up his wounds until only a slight ache was left. He could heal himself the rest of the way if he felt like it, but I always liked to leave a little pain behind as a reminder of any mistakes the trainee's faced.

"Names Dr. Isobe, Surgery Division," I finally introduced myself for once to the aspiring mednin as I offered my hand. It felt funny introducing myself like that, I was a mednin in training less than a year ago and beyond that, I was only three and half years into my journey as a shinobi. I stood there waiting to see if he took my hand or was one of those weirdoes who didn't understand social cues.

"So I heard you joined the medical division. What department are you looking into?" I asked him regardless of whether or not he shook. I still had to keep my mind on the girl as she came up, but I could split my attention to have some small talk.

"Keep it up, you'll be up here in no time! No she won't," I yelled down the mountainside at Kei, smiling as I muttered the last bit to Yukiin right next to me. I then set my focus to watching the rest of her climb up like a good little instructor. Needing to be ready for when she finally got up.

 

[Sato Yuji]

Kei sighed and simply powered her way through the rest of her climb. She had been trying to avoid getting cut by the sharp pointy objects raining down on her but decided to give that up. Powering through the blades she sighed as she felt them rip into her skin, at least they were sharp. She wasn't ashamed to admit she didn't like pain and had been trying to avoid it. At least Cig would heal her at the end of the lesson and, even if he didn't, she was sure she could badger Yuki into doing it for her, not that she couldn't do it herself if it really came down to it. What she was more upset about were her clothing, she could already feel the cold air flowing through the rips in her clothing. Sighing she crawled her way up to the top as her face popped over the edge a clear frown was shown. As she climbed over the lip she began to wrap the knives and chain around her waist, under her coat. "Why is Cig so mean to Kei," she complained once as she finished securing the chain. "Kei now has to find a new jacket." As she spoke she attached her self to Yuki again. The destroyed clothing was the biggest insult to her. The cuts stung slightly and would heal, but she would have to go and buy new clothing. As she clung close to Yuki she whispered under her breath to him "Let's throw Cig off the mountain. I'm sure Spear will catch him before he hits the bottom." She wasn't even joking, she had to participate in two classes with him that seemed to target all of her weak points and she doubted it would be her last class with him. That and he smelled absolutely disgusting. Sadly she highly doubted Yuki would agree with her plan of action, form what she had seen of him he, sadly, wasn't the type to do that.
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[1,706/1500]

 

[Byakko Yukiin]

He took the offered hand, giving it the sort of mechanical regard of a man who knew enough to do but not enough to do naturally. The youth pushed out a heavy breath, reclining as he waved off any further medical attention from Isobe. "Osuteno believes that the overuse of medical techniques will damage the body over time, showed a video and everything, I've been told to mend myself through more natural means when time allows. I haven't given specifics serious thought but considering my disposition, a Harvester would be a wise career move, assuming Junko will have me."

The girl came up in her own time and latched herself, the frost haired boy not bothering to push her off or move out of the way as it seemed to be a wasted effort and Kei would attach herself like dew drops to a leaf if he did anything less than attempt to kill her for it...although the thought did seem attractive at times.

"The instructor is likely more agile and firm than he appears, throwing him off the mountain wouldn't work....why wouldn't this one throw you off anyways for reattaching yourself?" Yukiin muttered beneath his breath, not because he felt it was an effective way to not be heard but because it seemed part of the game that she was playing and...well, he didn't fully understand it but something uncomfortably human told him that playing along with children's games was the proper thing to do and he was learning to relent to those impulses. The thawing of those parts of himself were awakening some uncomfortable things but it seemed, or so he was told, in his best interests to come to grips with the fullness of his species, flaws and perks alike. He turned over his claws, giving them a once over before he prodded Kei in the arm with one and then retracted them.

"If this one grows any other features you're not to touch them...I have no idea how much it would hurt, probably a lot though..."

[WC 350]