Spar: Iko vs Mikami (How long can he last this time? :P)

Now that Mikami had somewhat of a clue what he was doing, it was only common sense to test his abilities out again. His Raiton, his summoning tools, they would all be more helpful now that Mikami's eyes were trained for unnecessary movement. Of course though, no where near as trained as Iko's were. The only way to change that was to train. Constantly, over and over and over again. Until his body grew tired. Stamina wise, he had Iko beat. But Iko wasn't about stamina and the long run. Mikami noticed that he use small movements to make big differences. If he could use that and learn how to do it, he would be a better shinobi.

It was the same training field, the same time of day. This time Mikami wanted to go longer than 10 minutes. He had somewhat of an idea on a better stance and was smart enough to keep a kunai already hanging in his left hand. The message to Iko was identical so he knew he'd be showing up within a few minutes.

Mikami hoped for maybe 15 minutes without using a kawarimi. If he could get that far, he could carry a smile on his face.

To further train himself and Mikami, Iko found himself back in the same training field, 10 meters away from Mikami, in the same stance as before: the right foot led, while the left foot held back, maintaining most of Iko's wait. His left hand was held downward, barely in stance, kept in-between the front and the tool kit. His right arm was held outward, hand in front of the shoulder about two-and-a-half feet outward, elbow appropriately bent, as he waited once more...

Mikami quickly assumed his stance, not wasting time at all. It was obvious that Iko wanted him to come first, but Mikami couldn't make that mistake again. Before he could move, he gripped for another kunai in the same hand and moved his body accordingly. He kept his upper torso and head face forward at Iko, while his lower half was turned towards his left, with both legs in line, left behind right. His right foot was pointed towards Iko and his left foot remained pointed left. His right hand formed a "V" angle, palm towards Iko's face. Mikami and Iko knew the deal.

He threw one of the kunai towards Iko's back foot, in attempts to get things tarted.

Iko smirked: of course Mikami would pick the foot with more weight on it, even if it took only a second to redirect the force. Regardless, Iko took little note of this kunai, forcing his weight to his front foot, picking up his back foot which, essentially, 'stepped over' the kunai, as Iko simultaneously activated his Sharingan, checking for traps or wires subconsciously.

This one 'step' turned into a sprint directly towards Mikami, Iko keeping his knees relatively bent as he did so, Iko quickly making handsigns, preparing a jutsu, while staring Mikami directly in the face...

His eyes would have to follow Iko's neck or the very bottom of his chin. He knew he was weak to Sharingan genjutsu, or any genjutsu for that matter, so he had to keep his focus on somewhere high enough on Iko's body but low enough so that he wouldn't look into his eye. With Iko preparing handsigns that gave Mikami the time to think. Instead of running towards him he kept his stance. With the kunai in his hand he quickly made his move. One kunai was thrown directly at his right shoulder while he quickly grabbed a barrage of other tools. With a couple kunai and shuriken, he aimed two shuriken at towards both feet on in a downward motion, then released the last three in specific other areas in an upward, but level throws. One was thrown at his left shoulder while the last was thrown at a slight delay at his bicep. It was a trick he'd thought of that he assumed the Sharingan might be able to see through. One might think they could swat both kunai out of the air with the corresponding hand, but they would block the first one, and realize that the second one hadn't met their hand and would end up in their bicep.

He switched his weight quickly after the last throw to his right foot and brought his back heel up off of the ground slightly...

Not even having to break handsigns to block, Iko kept with the quick approach, seeing no wires or such on any of the blades: they were just sheer pieces of metal. To the first blade, Iko simply relaxed his shoulder, and let his arm drop somewhat, as the blade soared over and through open air.

Adjusting his feet so that they would 'skip' with one foot leading in front of the other, Iko quickly and deftly stepped over both weapons aimed at the feet without jumping, quickly resuming normal running patterns, as his jutsu completed, the blades appearing, as they did before, on the outsides of the arms. Relaxing his knees for a moment, Iko forced all of his weight to his feet as he crouched, the remaining weapons soaring over him, Iko then moving forward, the initial first step of this position used like a spring to get back to the momentum he was at before.

It was then, and only then, that Iko saw the weak point in Mikami's current stance: as the distance became only a matter of about three meters, Iko drew and threw two shuriken, aimed at the bottom of the 'ball' of each knee, staggerred such that both knees would be hit at exactly the same time. While doing this, he kept his approach steady, and only used his left arm to throw.

Since Mikami's stance had allowed his left knee to be behind the right, they were still in one line even if Iko was drawing closer or not. Iko had found a spot he could throw the kunai, an opening that he could aim for. Dodging would not be easy this time, but possible if he had the speed. With the ball of his feet planted firmly on the ground, Mikami made a small movement with his foot extending his heel outwards towards the right, in such that he was pivoting on the ball of his foot. With his stance already prepared, Mikami pushed back, keeping sure of the fact that his left knee was still behind his right knee. He jumped back-right, away from the shuriken by a few inches. His leg was extended in such away that his body did not become a larger target by becoming noticeably taller in the jump, keeping his leg and knee extended for no longer than the time needed for the jump.

Mikami's left back foot touched the ground first, but continued the small jump with his left leg lingering on the ground, still in the same stance. Iko was now less closer than he was before, giving him a small second to work with. He brought this hands palm-side facing together, similar to the monkey handsign. With a quick scratch on pad, he made a summon, choosing large weapon to gain more space. A large Fuuma Shuriken appeared which was gripped instantly with his top left hand and thrown outwards at Iko, the same time his left hand stooped lower for the shuriken at the pouch on his waist.

Spoiler:

Just because the weapon was big, didn't mean it was as dangerous as any other weapon, especially with the haphazard way it was thrown: merely leaning forward, the shuriken flew easily over him, as Iko very quickly closed the distance between them.

Taking no chances, Iko threw a kunai at Mikami's weapon which was reaching for the shuriken, while the hand would be in the pouch, as Iko swung his left arm directly at the center of Mikami's exposed back, as he still had slight backwards momentum, his 'backwards' facing Iko's side...

It seemed as though Mikami had not accurately positioned himself, and Iko had the angle for a back hit. His blades would meet him before the punch did, but Mikami wouldn't let that happen. He quickly bent his legs and ducked with his hip, and extended his rear slightly towards the right which allowed the shuriken to pass.. His head went down quickly, ducking underneath the punch as he extended his legs back... 'Mirage....' A force seemed to push his body back, with his head back up forward. Mikami's body moved back into his stance as he seemed to be pushed back about six or so meters, with plenty enough working room. He made sure to get a look at Iko's hand before doing so, seeing no throw-able tools available to him.

As he landed to an abrupt halt, he reached in his pocket and threw a smoke bomb down on the ground while he prepared a one handsign move with no elements. 'He can see my chakra through this cloud, but he can't detect my muscle movements'.. With quick summons again, Mikami held on to a large Fuuma Shuriken again and two special explosive notes. To Iko and his eyes, it would seem as if the shuriken erupted from the cloud a second after it came up. The shuriken was not aimed to hit him, but aimed directly in between his legs, at the ground right before his feet. It caught ground quickly and sizzled with less than a second before explosion. These explosive notes were not normal, full of near every known allergen to man. Meanwhile, Iko might catch the fact that there were two chakra sources behind the cloud, one taking a knee and up to something as one took the familiar stance again.

That tool...

If Mikami had to draw a tool, however, it gave equal time for Iko to respond, drawing an unknown tool in his hand as the smoke came up, keeping tabs on Mikami as he prepared something. The draw was in such a manner so that Mikami would have never seen Iko grab the tool, the tool kit and the relevant arm hidden behind his own frame.

He's already resorted to that level of movement... he's currently burning chakra at a greater rate than my own...

Not only able to see the tags, due to the nature of their existance, even before they were burnt, Iko could keenly smell the earth tags before him, and knew that he needed a quick defense for this attack. Due to simply this, Iko quickly let out an eight-trigrams palm rotation to a short, intense degree, which shatterred the remains of the tool, and deflected and dispersed a large part of the scent far away from Iko, and, in fact, back towards the smoke cloud: although it was small enough not to greatly affect the smoke, it did clear up the upper part of the cloud somewhat. Using his trained Sharingan, even while doing this, he kept tabs on Mikami...

The smoke cloud dissappated, leaving Mikami standing by himself this time. As the cloud fizzed away, he could be seen stuffing something into his pockets in a rush, whatever it was would be unknown to normal eyes. In his right hand was the same type of shuriken, except a Giant Windmill type this time, with better cutting. Of course Iko could see all of this, and more importantly he'd see the shuriken tingling in chakra with his Sharingan. His stance was loose, but roughly the same, there was enough room for him to effectively dodge anything thrown his way, the distance was far enough apart for that.

With a free hand, Mikami began his attack by tapping onto the summon pad with the hand left hand holding the Windmill shuriken. A volley of regular shuriken were released towards Iko, while Mikami maintained a defensive stance. Not even a second after the shuriken had been thrown, Mikami released the Windmill ones, throwing them directly towards Iko's mid section. Underneath, the side that he couldn't see were the same earth explosive tags. With a wire, Mikami pulled on the Windmill shuriken, revealing his trick. There had been not one, but two shuriken in the mix. The wire on the first one snapped, and the wind mill shuriken came apart. This would prevent a simple left to right dodge. Each blade had a tag on it, which were all ready sizzling again. Of course Iko would be busy dealing with the other shuriken first. A second surprise took place as a hidden shuriken, transformed back into a real body. Since it had obvioulsy gotten heavier, the clone stayed low to the ground as it hit and ran animal-style on all fours below the shuriken. His body was also sizzling as well, with the same earth tags all over his hands and arms. Mikami however, prepared the stuff "items" in his pocket.