Fist to Fist (Takatsumaru)

The sun struggled to shine its rays down on the second squad barracks through a spotty cloud cover that opened up in random places causing the grounds to be spotted with shadows. Kuro found it made for an relaxing day of training to not have the sun constantly bearing down on him as he practiced his barehanded strikes on some of the dummies they had set up on the side of the training grounds. It was a fair workout, but Kuro felt it wasn't enough. He wanted more than a motionless dummy to practice with. And with nobody in the squad up for a fight today, he didn't have much of a choice. Kuro continued to batter the stationary target, his punches and kicks growing heavier and heavier as he picked up his tempo. At last, with a final burst of strength poured into a straight chest blow, Kuro's strike tore the dummy from its base as his fist landed and pushed it away. It sailed through the air for a short distance before landing in the dirt and stirring up a small dust cloud. Kuro sighed as he watched the thing fall, then turned his attention to the next dummy in the line and resumed his sequential punishment.

Tatsu had been looking at his new captain for a while now, he was interested and he didn't know how he should ask the captain to join in. Tatsu didn't have that kind of training, and in fact everything he knew with a blade had been self thought. Looking at the captain actually go through that dummy was very inspiring. Tatsu decided on a way he would jump in, he looked at the chain of hits the captain used and prepared to shunpo, he wanted to jump in between the captain and the dummy and block the hit.

He prepared his motion and vanished from his current spot, the moment later Tatsu chirako was in between the captain and the dummy, blocking that one hit he had launched. Of course Tatsu felt like he had been hit by a tow truck but he looked at the captain with a smile and said in very clear words. ''I'm sure you'd rather have a moving target''

With this said, Tatsu took a half step back and dropped into his meager Hakuda fighting position, one foot forward the other behind for balance head down chin down, looking forward, both fists on the side of his head, he seemed ready for the whatever the captain threw at him.

Kuro's eyes flashed with momentary concern as a moving shape put itself between him and his current dummy. His strike hit not the padded scarecrow of a mounted target this time, but instead the arm of a seemingly interested Tatsu Chirako. Kuro grinned as a better challenge was offered, exactly what he'd been hoping for all day. A spar against a real person would do much more for his skill than lifeless dolls. Kuro took several steps back to give them some starting distance then did a few shuffles with his feet to get his legs prepared for movement.

Looking across the space, Kuro saw Tatsu's stance and began working out attack plans to get around it. It looked like a basic boxing stance, with both fists up and the head lowered to protect the neck. A decent defensive type stance that could react quickly to many types of attacks while also having a decent switching speed to the offensive. Kuro decided to overcome such a stance by simply wearing it down.

Kuro's body shot like an arrow from a crossbow, straight and quick across the sparring grounds towards Tatsu. His head and body were lowered in a forward charge, almost completely parallel to the ground. As his approach came up even with Tatsu, he stuck out one foot firm in front of him and skidded the remaining distance while his left arm pulled back like the hammer of a gun locking in place before the initial shot. The moment he was in range, Kuro's fist screamed at Tatsu's lower torso, the pit of his stomach where his hands would have to travel the furthest to defend. Not stopping with just the first attack, Kuro whipped his right hand out in a quick and light palm strike at Tatsu's face. Still not satisfied that this would break the samurai's wall, Kuro ended his assault with a rising knee strike with his left leg, aiming again for Tatsu's gut.

Tatsu looked at the captain take some distance, had already had an idea in mind, the samurai thought that the captain would attack in the legs for sure. Tatsu had an intersting concept of how to win fights, he had the willpower to actually draw fights longer than they were intended. The physical endurance Tatsu was reknowned to have because he trained with kaiyo so many times allowed him to survive in his rogue experience.

The samurai saw the first attack aimed for his stomach, he used one of the most ancient techniques he has always been using, take a hit to give a bigger one. Kuro's first hit made contact to Tatsu's hardened stomach, of course it winded him but he kept his focus, using this small momentum to lower his left defense and attempt an elbow slam at the captain's face. Sadly the elbow strike didn't make contact with its target but ended up blocking a blow that was launched at his face.

Wanting to have his style's best advantage Tatsu stepped in, trying to invade the captains personal space. Being so close the knee strike was unavoidable, knocking the samurai back a few steps, quickly emptying and filling his lungs he solved the whole being winded problem, or atleast it helped with it.

Not giving up Tatsu proceeded with a round house kick starting from the left the attempt and smash the captains defense and without stopping his motion he dropped down and twirled on himself trying to trip the captain down.

Kuro was impressed with Tatsu's endurance. Any lesser sparring partner would be finished already from the two successful blows he'd landed in the stomach area. But rather than backing down, Tatsu was pressing forward and retaliating. Such spirit only fired Kuro up for more. He was pleased that he'd found such a partner to train with.

Kuro saw the kick coming and was ready to block by bringing back his right arm to cushion the blow to his side. The force knocked him to the side, which combined with the sweeping leg move that followed to throw Kuro down to the side. As he fell, Kuro's mind raced with thoughts critiquing the fight. A little too soft Tatsu. You should have followed up with an additional attack after tripping me... Kuro caught his falling body with his left hand as he dropped closer to the ground and rolled himself into a cartwheel to avoid leaving an opening. Back on his feet, he let the motion sway him into a sideways slouch before springing back with a left hook fueled by his waist movement. He aimed at the same spot his punch and knee had hit before. Memory of such attacks wouldn't fade quickly, and he was sure he could bring Tatsu's guard up there easily with such an obvious wide attack. Just as his fist neared Tatsu's torso, he leaned his body back to make more room while pulling up his right fist in an uppercut aimed at Tatsu's chin. Like before, he turned this into a three stage attack, turning his backward lean into a back flip and attacking Tatsu's chin again as his feet swung up past him. Kuro landed a couple of feet back in a knelt position, crouched down and ready to resume.

Seeing the captain fall, Tatsu was actually caught by surprise which explain why he hesitated and didn't follow up the captain was so fast he even seemed to get up faster than most people after such a blow. Trying to catch the captain as he was getting back up, Tatsu had jumped in the air and attempted to slam his fist on the rising captain, only to miss and cripple the bricks underneath his fist.

Instantly in a low posture he rose his right leg in front of him while pivoting his body to the left, putting both of his hands in front of him it protected him from most frontal attacks including the one aimed at his torso. In his mind Tatsu counted once again. 1
Blocking the first strike of the combo, the samurai saw the second strike come an upward move aimed to hit his chin, this meant his right side was opened. Without further thinking the shinigami brought his knee in the general direction the the captains rib cage, trying to work that up. The captains hit however did made contact, raising Tatsu's face to see the sky. 2 He thought, having had a bit of experience on this, the samurai was sure that would be another attack incoming.

Predicting this third attack from the captain Tatsu shunpo into a crouching stance behind the captain, but he was so fast his motion had already been half way done, which meant he was right above him about to land. Slamming his food down raising his fist upwards using the whole of his body to push upwards, Tatsu attempted a all out attack on the captain as he finished his strike. ''3''

Kuro was once again impressed, this time by Tatsu's reflexes. The way Kuro's hook had been launched, Tatsu wouldn't have even needed to worry about blocking it. Of course such reflexes had worked against him too, making him move to block an attack that wasn't aimed at hitting him. This had let Kuro's uppercut land right on the mark and throw Tatsu's face harshly skyward as Kuro leaned back and began his flip. Kuro's flipping double kick missed however as Tatsu used shunpo to take position beneath him as his flip finished and his feet were nearly on the ground again.

Kuro smirked at the display, pleased that he'd forced Tatsu to be the first to use shunpo. He met the rising punch with both of his hands and pushed himself off of Tatsu to perform a type of double jump, landing further away. But not willing to be the one to retreat in this fight, Kuro decided that he too would use shunpo now. Not wanting to lose an opening made by such a large attack, Kuro seemed to vanish as he shunpoed with incredible speed to take the fight right next to Tatsu again. He grasped at Tatsu's raised fist with both of his arms, leaning heavily to throw his sparring partner to the ground. Kuro followed suit and fell to one knee and brought his left fist down upon Tatsu's chest, punching with enough force to cause cracks to blossom out on the ground beneath them. He now stood up and jumped back for more space to allow time for them to set up round 2.

Tatsu had stricken with such determination that he was sure to hit, and for a moment there he felt something on his fist, but it wasn't the joyful feel of contact to the enemy he felt, but more like the enemy used his upward punching to propel himself further away, and just before the shinigami attempted to fall back into position it was already too late.
Overwhelmed by the increduble speed of the captain's shunpo the samurai was caught off guard, being grappled and thrown to the ground by the captains strength, Tatsu tried getting up but it was useless the captain was already all over him.. The hit came down and suddenly Tatsu focused all his reiatsu over his torso area, revealing his technique on how he reduced the damage.

Cracks were all around him, and it took him a good ten seconds to get back up to his feets. ''Just a minute'' He said, taking the time to move his back in ways that made it crack, cracking his neck, afterall he had taken one hell of a beating right there. Multiple hits from a captain class shinigami and he took only a minute to recover back to fighting strength.

He took his position back in front of the captain, of course he wasn't in pristine condition, bruises were easily visible on his chest area and his chin was bleeding, but he was still standing strong in front of the captain, of course he knew this to be a friendly fight, but this was his time to show the good captain that he hadn't saved someone who was useless.

Tatsu's second signature ability was how he used shunpo, with this signature ability he had managed to think of a way to land a blow and cut the captain of the eleventh division on the first day he had used it, of course she had been giving him tons of chances back then. Still a good ten feet away Tatsu put up one arm in defense in front of him, while preparing the other one to hit, there was no way he could reach the captain from that far even if he used the whole length of his arm. He launched his attack, and while it was in midair, he used shunpo, to appear right in front of the captain and finish his strike aiming for his sternum. Not wanting to let the captain go with a single strike Tatsu followed with his favorite attacks, another round house kick followed by a hammer drop kick on the captains shoulder. Quickly after his maneuver the samurai would take half a step back in an attempt to make a distance between them.

Kuro waited patiently for Tatsu to be ready to fight again. He was in no rush to destroy the only willing training partner that he'd found in a while. It was best to give him a break and let him decide when was best to continue. The wait wasn't long, Tatsu taking his stance again after only a minute. Such hardiness was admirable. Kuro wondered what kind of display he'd be shown this time. The result was decent, but foolhardy in Kuro's eyes.

Tatsu began a straight punch before launching into a shunpo and taking himself the rest of the distance to be near enough to land the end of the attack. Such a move would give him a great surprise attack on others, but a shinigami of Kuro's speed and talents with shunpo could see the movement perfectly. When Tatsu's punch lashed out after his shunpo, there was nothing but air in its path. Kuro had stepped forward into the little remaining space between them and hunched down to launch an immediate counter attack the moment Tatsu exited shunpo. From his lowered position, Kuro let loose a flurry of quick compact punches aimed all over Tatsu's chest and stomach region. Tatsu continued his combo afterwards, once again displaying a great endurance as he threw a roundhouse kick at Kuro. The captain decided to avoid this by interrupting and breaking Tatsu's combo by kicking off from the ground and driving his fist hard towards the center of Tatsu's gut with enough force to throw them both into the air. Kuro landed afterwards on all fours, standing up immediately and going into a quick explanation of what he'd just shown Tatsu.

"Two of the key techniques of my own martial art style. Issui style's torrent and geyser. Techniques with the goal of exploiting open space in an opponent's movements."

Tatsu still had it in him, his fighting ability was still flaring high and he still felt in good shape, the wounds he had were not one of a zanpakuto so the pain wasn't as strong, although all those hits to his torso area were starting to get a workout to endure. Tatsu began his strike, his signature move that he enjoyed doing so much, he had expected to take the captain by surprise but his fist only met air, a shockwave of spiritual energy was felt throughout the barracks as Tatsu was getting more and more serious.

Quickly seeing that his target was in fact right in his face working his rib cage the samurai attempted to work a defense up with his arms. Tatsu felt like his strike would work this time, although the roundhouse kick missed and Tatsu was quickly flying in the air with an overpowering strike from the captain. By this point many bystanders started to watch the fight, whispers of people wondering how the 5th seat could still be standing after such a blow. In fact, Tatsu really started to feel alot of hurt coming from his chest, and he would remember this training session for a while, so he decided he would work his enemy little at a time, being more on the defense side and making less attacks that were so huge and big.

Allowing a smile to the captain, Tatsu spoke while taking his breath back. ''I failed most of the Bakuda classes, I'm just making up as I go'' It was true that Tatsu was a swordsman, he just wanted to know what it felt like to fight an enemy with his bare fist, and he was truly enjoying it, the contact of fists against flesh was something new to the samurai.

Slowly approaching the captain, making half steps without raising his feets or dropping his defense, he feinted an attack once..and twice. jabs both of the times. Bursting into action Tatsu went again with the sweep kick trying to knock the captain off guard, he wanted to chain with a drop kick, but it would leave him far too open, so he proceeded into a large step towards him and attempting a punch at the captain's lower body, avoiding the groin to be sure. Aiming for the captains stomach seemed like a good idea to him at the current time.

Kuro was fully calm and waited again for Tatsu to resume the fight. He grinned in response to Tatsu's statement of making it up as he went. That seemed hard to believe when constantly dodging these practiced moves of roundhouse kicks and that unique shunpo punch. He'd been forced to improvise on the spot, firing his issui counter attacks from a normal stance instead of easing into his style's main stance beforehand. But while waiting and then watching Tatsu slowly and carefully approach, Kuro spread his feet a bit further apart and eased the muscles in his waist. Shifting his weight back and forth from one leg to the other, he began to rock his body in a loose and repetitive way that was like the ebb and flow of waves in a body of water. He watched Tatsu's movement through piercing analyzing eyes and kept his rhythm steady.

Kuro's eyes seemed to flash with understanding as Tatsu began his assault. Both jabs, regardless of feint or genuine, were dodged by Kuro swaying and twisting his body out of their path. He eyed the sweeping kick and decided to endure it rather than give up his footing. Shifting all his weight to the leg Tatsu's kick came at, Kuro remained steadfast as the attack impacted. He still felt the blow however. That a shinigami could have such a durable body and focused spirit power at Tatsu's level was amazing. But Kuro was ready for the next blow. It was what he'd been waiting for. As Tatsu ended his combo with a large step for a heavy punch, Kuro shifted his body to the side of the arm's path and stepped into the space beside Tatsu's arm and in front of his body. Spinning to stand with his left shoulder facing Tatsu's front, Kuro grabbed hold of his punching arm with his right hand and pulled it forward while planting his left hand against Tatsu's chest and heaving his whole body up and over his head. Kuro swung down to throw Tatsu to the ground on his other side while balling his left hand into a fist and bringing it down on top of Tatsu. The damage from the fist wasn't much as it had already been in contact during the throw, but Kuro pushed off from the blow and jumped high into the air. Instead of letting gravity do the work for him, Kuro sped up the attack by pushing off from the air and flying back down on top of Tatsu and punching him in the sternum. After this was done, he stood up and stepped back to see how Tatsu was faring after this counter.

Tatsu was skilled but there were limits to everything he could do, his sternum was already pretty worked up and Kuro never stopped working that area. He had approached his enemy with utmost precautions yet it wasn't enough. His feints were dodged and the samurai thought his sweep strike would work.

Surprised once again by the fact that the captain decided to endure the strike, or did he hit? He wasn't sure he had the utmost focus he needed to fight such an enemy. Tatsu had a bad habit of liking large attacks but he didn't have the speed to back it up. He had the potential and he had learned this fighting the onmitsukido he was merely replicating the moves that had been used on him which he had practised before. He punched forward but the captain was gone, already grappling his arm and throwing him on the ground, things were going so fast and Tatsu had lost focus of his spiritual pressure over the pain he felt, he still attempted to soften the fall. Tatsu had rolled on himself and was about to get on all fours when the captain came down with his smashing finish, winding Tatsu and making him go flat on the ground once again.

He wanted to get up, his willpower was still flaring. His body didn't though he was beaten and he didn't want to admit it. Having many traits of the eleventh division the samurai wanted to transcend his pain and stand back up again, willing to go through round three, but it wouldn't happen.

Extending his arm towards the captain, he tapped the floor twice. ''I'm beat..'' Rolling himself on his back the samurai was smiling and breathing heavily. ''You surely know how to fight Captain'' He said proudly, he wanted to use this fight to prove to the captain he was worth his while, he wanted to show him what he was worth, that he had the heart and the willpower to always push himself to his limits.

Kuro walked forward to give Tatsu a careful hand in standing up. "It was an exciting match. I'm sorry for being so rough like that. Your endurance and determination was just so high that I felt I had to get a little serious to bring you down. I hope we can do this again sometime."

Kuro had indeed enjoyed the fight. A chance to exercise his barehanded skills was a rare commodity these days. And the longer Tatsu remained as a sparring partner, the more both of them would improve and come out ahead in terms of their strength. Kuro chuckled with a thought that he hoped Tatsu could hold together until then.