Ready for the finals?

[Zao]

Each bout that the young man had the opportunity to be part of from the genin exams to the exhibition match against the fox man who's strength was ridiculous, Akujin had been shown just how much growth was required from him in order to even be able to play just a small part in his own personal goals for the Leaf village. His match had ended against Izumi just this morning and after a stint in the first aide ward he was back on his feet and could still feel slight aches coming from his back from being hit with that surprise explosion technique of hers. His quiet foot steps allowed for the half face mask wearing genin to find a more quite part of the tournament grounds, as most people were to preoccupied with the on going round robin matches between the village jounin who were putting on exhibition matches to notice or care about a genin doing a little training on his own at the disserted training area.

Akujin arrived after the short walk to find himself alone, which was what he had been hoping for as he reached down and touched the clay pouch with his left hand now, it had been refilled through one of his clansmen who had came to watch over him on his first long trip outside the village. It was a blessing for the young man who had used most of his clay between the previous genin bouts and the exhibition match with his fellow genin against the shinobi from Kirigakure no Sato. In fact, the man had brought two pouches worth on him, this was the second reason the boy was here to train today due to him now knowing that even if he used allow of the clay on him that he still had a spare bag for the rest of the tournament. Having seen the three genin left in the winner's bracket, having only fought Aiya personally, Jin was well aware of their strengths and how he was a few steps behind each of them in terms of sheer overall ability.

But was it best for him to just continue to increase his strength in his ink and clay ninjutsu or was it better for him to dive into his own physical prowess? This thought left the masked genin at a loss for which would be best for him given the short amount of time to train and the almost unsurmountable goal that was Aiya and the Kiri nin with their powerful physical attributes and weapons...

[Kaitos10]

Haruka had just finished the chunin exams and after getting eliminated in the first round due to lack of physical endurance. Then having such a hard time in the next round of the match because of a lack of speed. She figured she would need to train a lot harder on her physical attributes, but because of her issues with her opponent’s explosion techniques she was currently in the hospital. She hated being stuck here injured it was so frustrating and so boring. She had some books but they couldn’t help her deal with her restless energy. Eventually after what felt like for ever she was able to do some dancing and light exercising. That definitely helped pass the time until she was back to full health or at the very least healthy enough to continue more strenuous training as well as sparing.

She would then rush out of the hospital as soon as she was able and would head to the training grounds, she had lots of time to come up with ideas for practicing her physical attributes and she figured she would start with her speed first. So to warm up for her training she would spring all the way to the training grounds timing herself to see how fast she could get there. She just kept thinking on how to get past this first hurdle. She then tried to psych herself up for all the training she would have to do in the coming days. As she headed to the deserted training grounds she would be listening to her surroundings realizing how quiet it was. As she thought about it and how all the jounin or higher were either watching the chunin exams or exhibition matches or just participating in the exhibition matches.

It seems like her previous opponent who beat her previously was beaten also or just dropped out which is disappointing since she wanted a rematch. She was hoping on battling them so she could surpass that hurdle and get one step closer to her goals. Eventually she reached the deserted training ground and saw a familiar face there and decided to sneak up on Akujin. To play a small joke on him, she would stealthily sneak up on him then once she was close enough she would make a small fire cracker boom using her jutsu. The goal was to startle him kind of like going up to someone and yelling boo. If she successfully snuck close enough to him and the jutsu went off successfully startling him she would fall on to the ground laughing hysterically.

Then once she was done laughing and had calmed down and if Akujin was in the mood to talk after her little prank. She say in a jovial and bubbly manner “hai hai! Nice to see you again! Whatcha doing here?” If he told her he was planning on training she would reply by saying “me too! Do you want to train together?”

[Zao]

"Oi?!" Akujin truly had allowed for himself to become to wrapped up in his own thoughts instead of paying attention to his surroundings, not aware that he was currently being stealthily approached by the fellow Konoha genin until it was truly too late. He was startled as he actually jumped at lead a foot into the air, twisting around as his hands started to instinctively mesh into hand seals, forgetting where he was and that that likelihood of someone breaking the rules about fighting outside the arena were most likely zero. His golden gaze fell upon the fellow country woman who at this point had falling onto the ground from the laughter created by her own antics.

Landing softly four or five meters away, he could only shake his head and half smile under the ninja mask that concealed the majority of the shinobi's face at this point undoing his hands as the left one rose into a gentle greeting and the other relaxed back down to the side. "Hah, I was so distracted in thought you managed to sneak up on me." His young voice spoke with humor in it, able to take the joke from his comrade. "Looks like you've already healed up." It hadn't been too long since the fight but it seemed the medical personnel and the medic-nin in attendance had made quick work of the young girl's injuries from the genin battle.

"Yes, I did come here to train and think about those two power houses." Though he didn't mention the two genin by name anyone who had been watching the bouts could see that Aiya and the Kiri-nin (Ico) where very powerful, on the borderline of being compared to normal chuunin by Akujin's standards, at least. He'd felt the power of Aiya first hand, even though their bought was close, she still held the upper hand during the bout and his art based ninjutsu had truly been unable to counter the weaponeering and sheer brute strength that came with her spider transformation. "It would be fun to train with another person who understands art." Finishing his words the young ninja nodded his head as if affirming his words to Haruka .

[Kaitos10]

Haruka would be laying on the grass laughing for a bit before saying “yes I did and yes I am” she then pauses for a bit to recompose herself and take a more serious tone saying “yea I saw there fight it’s surprising there could be genin that powerful but that just means have to train even harder to catch up.” She then gets up and starts to stretch as she waits for his answer, when he eventually responds yes she jumps up happily and says “so? What sort of training excercise do you want to do?”

She then goes back to stretching as she thinks of all the possible options they could do. But first she had to decide what to train, she could train speed and try dodging attacks? Or just do that as endurance training, maybe train strength question is how would she do that in a way that wasn’t boring. The two worst ones she was dreading where Genjutsu defenses (will power) and maybe chakra control she didn’t see any way training those wouldn’t suck at all. There could be a way to train them that was fun and she hadn’t found it yet but she found that kind of unlikely especially in the genjutsu defenses (will power)

On the other hand Chakra control did seem far more likely as a option that could be fun some how and she just hasn’t thought of it yet. Question is how could she make it fun? But after wondering for a bit she decides to just shelve that idea for later once she reaches that point. Question now was which thing to train first, after narrowing down the options she had come to endurance, chakra pool, and strength. Since those seemed like there the most fun options at the moment, she could just fire off jutsu randomly to train her chakra pool. Plus practicing with her bombs would be nice but she was worried about comparing them to her opponents bombs would make hers looks small and sucky, so she decided against that since she was worried that would take all the fun out of it and make her loose motivation. So the next options would be strength or endurance. The problem with strength was that she couldn’t figure out a fun way to train it right now. So by the process of elimination that left endurance as the choice

[Zao]

"Yes, we must always be ready to challenge ourselves and grow stronger from the experience." Akujin nodded as he turned to his comrade in arms and fellow village ninja, "But those two really are far ahead. Even pulling out all the stops and taking my chakra to zero wasn't enough to overcome either of them in my last fight." The young shinobi couldn't help but sigh a bit and close his eyes. His masked face hiding his true thoughts as he replayed the events of his fight with Aiya in his head. During the fight he'd demonstrated both of his ink and clay techniques, perhaps he needed to fall back on to his original art form.

Both golden irises were revealed as the man's eyes snapped open, an unseen smile under the half face masked formed on Jin's face. He would have to widen his own arsenal with some techniques that he hadn't shown to the spider lady or that huge sword wielding kid. Perhaps keeping them guessing with his other art ninjutsu might just be enough to catch them off guard. "As a fellow art ninja, have you ever used paper ninjutsu?"

The art of Kami ninjutsu, forming hand seals the young man summoned paper sheets the size of normal paper tags and some a bit bigger that seemed to flow from the sleeves of his clothing now forming into five four-pointed shuriken through the paper tags folding together with one another before they shot forward with decent accuracy. Smashing into the training log about ten meters away, appearing to be just as strong and sharp as traditional shuriken would have been through the chakra reinforcement given to the paper tags.

Paper ShurikenShow

Paper Release - Shuriken
D-rank Ninjutsu
Forming hand seals the user summons up to five sheets of paper through their chakra and/or from paper tags on their person that fold themselves into five normal sized shuriken that are hardened and sharpened by chakra that float out in front of the user, forming at [Control] strength and speed. These shuriken can then be fired off over the course of the next post in a single direction up to fifteen meters away.