Welcome to Gaia! ::

Kyoma watched as her vines had tied around Death. She ran to Haruko, giving her a small smile. She knows, too. Death-sensei wouldn't give in to our traps that easily, though i wish he would. She looked down at the katana that had slipped from Death's fingers, pretending that she hadn't suspected anything wrong about Death falling into their trap. As she continued to look at the katana on the ground, she put her fingers to the pink ribbon around her neck, resisting the small urge to untie it. Keeping her hand to her neck, she then felt the earth shake a bit before spikes began appearing from all over the place.

((Sorry again, I made a mini-announcement in the Temporary Absence thread if you didn't see it.))

Death was disappointed and proud at the same time. They had made the right move... almost. "Well done!" Death opened his eyes and struggle against the vines to look over at the group. "Well, you finally aren't leaving anybody alone, but who said staying in one close group would be any better. Now you're one big, easy to hit target." The color left Death's right arm as black electricity erupted from it quite violently. It hungered for the life force coming from the vines and easily sucked dry the plants around his right arm, even the grass. Death's arm broke free from the hold and his palm smacked loud against the ground.

Haruko's earthen spikes began emerging from the ground, one cutting Death's right leg on the thigh. But then, the ground stopped it's rumbling and the spikes froze, no more emerging from the earth. Death smiled his evil smile; he had sent his black electricity through the ground and caused Haruko's jutsu to follow it. "Hey look, dead grass!" Around Haruko's, Kyoma's, and each Kenji's feet the grass turned brown and dead. This was followed by that well known warning rumble. Death had redirected Haruko's jutsu back at the group.

While his foes took a moment to deal with their predicament Death decided he should get back up. More black electricity flowed into the vines holding him down and absorbed their life, too. Since the vines were alive, Death received a portion of their energy, partially refilling his total chakra. Breaking through the now dead vines and roots, Death stood up and took a couple of steps away from where he just was.

Death certainly wasn't the best at picking up on these kinds of things, but it was obvious that something was bothering Kenji. Unsure of what exactly was getting to him, Death decided it would be best to just continue the fight and observe. Perhaps Death would discover an emotional weakness in this trainee.

Kenji's lack of strategy was perfect, even the element fell right into Death's hands. Water was one thing that Death hated, it didn't mix well with his powers. However, he could use it against his enemies if done properly. Kenji was running with the wave and made a great set up for Death to counter. In a couple of seconds, things would get even better as Kenji punched through the wave.

Raising his arms, they became charged with black electricity. The anti-energy flowed around the two limbs and collected in quantity. Death's belt turned from it's bright red to a deep black as the electricity formed. Death yelled, "Freeze!" and each collection of black electricity shot off at the wave.

The strike would cause the water in the wave to become solid ice. The outer edges of the wave might not freeze entirely, but the center would. And as a bonus, Kenji had his arm in the wave. Death would probably still get punched, but at least he had done something. To prepare for the possible blow, Death tightened his muscles.

Death was a little surprised when Kenji grabbed a hold of him but he didn't feel threatened at all. What's he expecting to do now? He can't hit me from the other side of this wave, Death thought to himself. But, this silent question was answered quite quickly as Kenji busted through to the side Death was on. A simple "Oh..." slipped from Death's lips as Kenji proceeded with his counter.

With little time to react, Death could only release a small amount of anti-energy when his forehead made contact with the ice wall. It came out of his forehead and softened the amount of shock that was reflected back into his skull. Death still got a cut, which began bleeding right away because it was right over a vein, and he had some vertigo, but Death had avoided any fracture or brain damage. The following push combined with Death's dizzy state led to a bit of stumbling before he regained balance.

Focus came back to Death as Kenji followed up with a second rush. The spinning back kick was a blessing; Death was a taijutsu master and he was about to show Kenji exactly that. Grinning, Death simultaneously stepped off with his left foot into zenkutsu dachi and performed a parry block with his hands, leading with his left hand. Finishing the block, Death grabbed a hold of Kenji's outstretched leg with his right hand and used his left hand to form a knuckle fist and strike the inside of Kenji's thigh right above the knee. A large amount of sensitive nerves can be found there and Death hoped to cause Kenji a lot of pain. With the right hand still holding on, Death let out a little bit of black electricity into the lower half of Kenji's leg in hopes of hindering his leg even further.

((A million thanks to Google and Youtube. Pics and video were perfect!))

Kenji's counter was impressive. It was simple which made it better. Being able to fight tough battles with basic moves is a great skill to have. However, Death was not very happy about it. His hand unraveled from the fist and he pulled his arm in towards himself continuing the original upward movement to end near his own head. Unfortunately, a few water spikes still got to cut open the back of Death's forearm. From his wrist to his elbow were three large slices, blood beginning to flow out of them.

Even though Kenji countered Death's punch, it did not stop Death from releasing black electricity into Kenji's leg. The anti-energy eagerly flowed into Kenji's leg, attracted by the energy in it. Death's chakra had been exposed to the black electricity so much that it had built up an ability to actually repel the anti-energy, preventing Death's powers from backfiring on him. This quality kept Death safe from many a situation.

With his injured arm near his face, Death could smell the blood now starting to drip off his elbow. Death's blood was very red, a vivid crimson color that almost seemed unnatural. Besides that, it also had a soar, acidic smell. But not the delicious candy soar, it smelled more like soar dough bread and had the nauseating quality of soar milk. In fact, the smell gave him an idea.

In a cold voice Death said, "You'll pay for that. Nobody cuts me and gets away easily!" Swinging his arm downward, blood flew off at Kenji's face and chest. Hopefully, Kenji would blink and make the following move even more surprising. Death pull Kenji's leg that he was holding back behind himself and let go. At almost the same time, Death brought his right leg forward, kicking Kenji's left ankle.

This was a cruel move, but Death wasn't exactly feeling nice right now. Kenji's legs would be going in different directions with neither one on the ground. Unless he could do something in a split second and ignore the blood and it's foul odor, Kenji would be headed towards pain lane. The quick outward movement would pull the muscles in his groan which hurt no matter what your gender was. Then, Kenji would land on... well, I think you get the idea; Kenji's about to perform a high speed split.

((Truthfully, I have no idea how to dodge this. I've had this done to me in real life and the best thing I could do was put my hand down and I just barely saved the lives of my future children. It was extremely close and I was still terribly sore from pulling all those muscles... not fun.))

{Sorry for taking so long to reply, I've been really busy lately.}

Haruko was surprised to see her spikes suddenly stop appearing and watched as Death gave them an evil smile. 'What is he planning?' Her question was soon answered as the ground around them began to rumble. 'S***, he sent the attack right back! How?' Haruko questioned herself as she jump back and away from the attack. Once she reached a safe distance away, she turned towards Death's direction only to see him engaged with Kenji in close combat. Haruko used this as a chance to gather her barings while she waited for an opening to jump in. 'I hope Kenji-san does okay.'

Haruko continued to watch as the two continued to counter each other's attack and smiled a bit when she saw Kenji's attack successfully injure Death. 'Nice.' Haruko thought but then she saw Death's counter and winced, 'Both of his legs are probably injured, best to step in before he recieves anymore damage.'

Haruko began running towards Death and Kenji's location and watched as Kenji went in for a kick before rolling a distance away. Haruko saw him prepare a seal before landing face down on the grass to conceal his hands. Knowing that Kenji was wide open for an attack and that his legs were injured, Haruko quickly formulated a small defensive plan. As she neared Kenji's location, Haruko formed the correct handsigns for a wood clone. As the clone appeared, Haruko summoned out her koto and passed it over to her clone. Stopping in front of Kenji, the clone began strumming up a sound barrier while Haruko ran over to Kenji and prepared herself to heal him when she saw water surrounding his legs. 'What's he planning?' Haruko leaned in to make it look like she was healing him and whispered, "Hey, so what have you got planned Kenji-san?"

Haruko heard Kenji's words and nodded in understanding, not sure if he saw or not. "If you say so Kenji-san...just be careful okay? Death will most likely get suspious if I suddenly left but I'm sure he'll stick to his advantage." Getting up, Haruko whispered a quick 'good luck' to Kenji before suddenly disappearing back to where Kyoma was along with her clone.

Haruko returned Kyoma's smile and turning to watch the battle unfold as well. "I know what you mean but I guess we just have to accept that this is his fight and not ours. He's doing this to gain Death's approval and if we step in, we doing nothing but defeating the whole purpose of this battle. And yeah, I know he's strong but I'm still worried, he looked pretty injured when I went to check up on him."

{No problem, as long as you're back! smile }