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"Stay back!"

As soon as Kenjirou saw Kyo approach he and Cerbi, he immediately grabbed his sword off or the rock next to him. Within seconds, it was at his side. Kenjirou had entered a wide legged stance, his left hand holding his katana secure and level while his right hand secured itself around the handle. His left thumb had pushed the blade out a bit, Kenjirous gaze broadening as his mind cleared.

He did not focus on Kyo. Instead, he took Kyo and everything around him in as a whole. Seeing everything, not missing a single thing. Kenjirou's eyes had thinned slightly, though his expression did not bear a scowl. Instead, he seemed even calmer than he was before.

Kenjirous presence bore no enmity towards Kyo, though there was a definite power to it. Kenjirou fought without rage or anger, or morals or virtue. He fought with emptiness, the true essence of the warrior.

He was neither backing out, nor stepping forward. Kenjirous frame of mind was not that which could be grasped, looking into Kenjirou, in a way, Kyo would instead see himself.

"..."

"..."

Kenjirou kept his stance and his battle mind held for a few moments, just in case, before slowly entering a regular standing position. His left hand stayed on the sword, though his left thumb rested on the top of the sword hilt rather than pushing at the bottom. As he stood, the handle of the sword was held more parallel to his body, rather than extending straight out from his waist so he could grab it. Whether either Cerbi or Kyo understood, this was a sign of non aggressiveness in swordsman body language.

Kenjirou gave a small bow, to Kyo, the intensity of his battle ready presence fading into its identical, but more subtle, every day mode.

"I apologize, Kyo-San, I did not realize it was a joke."

Kenjirou held his bow, but turned to Cerbi, and continued with

"And I apologize to you as well, Cerbi, I acted out of habit. Please forgive my rudeness."

There was no self pity, nor irritation to Kenjirous tone. He geniunly meant the apology.

Cerbi sighed. What was the saying? 'Can't teach an old man a new trick?' It was something along those lines she beleived, so she just shook her head.

"It's fine Ken. I can understand why you did it. It's your job after all," Cerbi replied, a small smile on her face. The whole thing would have been hillarious if she hadnt almost died. But then again, she was a bit of a drama queen.

She fell back onto her back, and laughed to herself slightly. "Okay, I'm done scaring Ken for the day," she exclaimed.

She watched Kyo leave with one eye and wondered what he was going to say. 'The only one...' what? She pondered.

Kanti smirked lightly to himself as he had began to get back into the grove of throwing shuriken. Flipping through his pouches he began to throw an assault of shuriken through the air causing a continuous humming noise throughout the immediate vacinity of the forest. As he finished off two handfuls of shuriken he leapt into the trees and began to throw shuriken from the air around the trees aiming at the largest he could see. Bouncing back and forth between the trees he flipped head over heels and somersault to moonsault throwing shuriken as accurately as he could to one central point on the tree noticebly making more and more noise from the clang of metal on metal as well as metal on wood for any error in his throws that'd go offcourse into a nearby tree or the ground around it. As he landed he slowly stood backup and looked out towards the tree he'd been focused on, it was riddled with Shuriken and chipped bark all over the place. Walking over to the tree he began to pull out the shuriken one by one placing them back into their pouches. After spending about a half hour trying to find all the shuriken he'd tossed he counted back to the beginning and looked through his thoughts to where every one of them could've gone. Having decided he came across collecting everyone of them he decided it was enough for the shuriken training. Thinking back to what he had learned from Kyo his sighed lightly, his jutsu repetoir was rather weak, knowing only the basic ninjutsu academy students learned, as well as a meek fire jutsu barely strong enough to light anything outside of light fiber it'd be more an annoyance than an actual attack. He thought of a simple technique to strength his chakra capacity, or atleast what he assumed would've been such.

Taking a long breath he formed his hands into the ram seal and focused his chakra. Behind him several clouds of smoke appeared forming bunshin of his original form. As he focused more they each disappeared again in a cloud of smoke appearing in teh form of Kyo. Sighing lightly he looked over his shoulder at the others behind him as he released the jutsu and they all exploded into a cloud of smoke.

Cerbi heard what both Kyo and Kenjirou had said, and blushed at both. But she sat up and turned around before either guys could tell.

There was no way that Kenjirou was right, was there? In fact, she shouldnt care. The last two guys she had a chance with ended up dead. To her, there was no good side to getting that close to someone. But then again, she never had the experience of having a boyfriend.

She just huffed and turned back to glare at Kenjirou, bu it's effectiveness didnt go over well with her cheeks still tinged pink. "Old man, keep those kind of opinions to yourself," but she couldnt help but get a funny feeling in her stomach.

Kyo slowly began to wade back towards the shore feeling like nothing was really happening after the incident with the Ken scare. Sighing lightly he rolled over at he approached the shore and started to make his way out of the water standing before Cerbi rubbing the back of his head.

"You plan on coming back in Cerbi-chan?"

Kenjirou was about to reply, though his gaze was intently caught in the direction of the forest from whence the trio had came. He slowly stood, his gaze never leaving that direction, though as he stood he put his sword back at his side. His presence grew calm, almost empty, like the water in the lake beside them, as it had when he was preparing to cut Kyo down.

From the trees in the distance, three figures had emerged. All three of them had the tops of their heads shaved, the hair on the sides tied into a topknot on the back of their head. They wore white keiko-gi tops with short sleeves, and simple black hakama for pants. At their sides, they carried two swords. A Wakizashi, and a katana.

Kenjirou stepped off of the rock, and stated simply to Kyo and Cerbi

"Please stay out of this. They are from the Murashimoto, and likely have come to kill me."

Kenjirou's tranquil eyes met with those of the anger driven, infuriated younger men who were approaching him. Kenjirou talked with them for a few moments, standing at least 6 feet away from them. While what Kenjirou and the trio were talking about could not be heard, it soon didn't matter, for one of the Murashimoto disciples let out a battle cry as he drew his sword, holding it high above his head and charging Kenji, attempting to slice him right down the middle.