Grasping at the Sky

Chapter 13: Advice

The headquarters of what had once been the Scorpion Section had seen better days. It was buried deep inside a mountain of sandstone that seemed to grow out of the wall in the far eastern corner of the village. The same training area of stone and loose sand had brought back memories of blocked attacks and being left on the ground humiliated sparing session after sparing session. In the corner of her vision she had even seen a mirage of the blood splattered stains of her own exhausted body laying in a heap on the ground, the ghosts that haunted the recesses of her mind.

Not that she could very well see any stains now.

In the last hour the entire area had changed. The ground was soft, having been covered in a good few inches of mud from one of Kira's justus in an attempt to minimize the amount of useable sand. Said mud was hardly untouched. Footprints, skid marks and long gashes, along with a literal hole in the ground, littered it, carving out the tell tales signs of a battle. The only thing that was similar between the before and after really was that once again, Kira was on the ground.

She was sitting in the thick mud with little decorum, arms resting on knees that were spread wide in a rather un-lady like fashion. She was covered in mud. Her once bright blue top now resembled her black pants more then the sky outside, and her face and hair were streaked with dirt. The mud on her face was already starting to dry from the heat her body was pumping out due to a vigorous work out and Kira reached a hand out and scratched at her cheek, flaking it off.

All in all, Kira was a mess, while her opponent was almost completely unharmed. Not unexpected, but still a tad annoying.

Gaara sat on his gourd, using it like a rock in the mud to rest against as he waited for Kira to catch her breath. His arms were uncrossed, showing the rather silly amount of 'damage' Kira had been able to do during their very first sparing match. There was mud on his neck, and a small splatter of it dotting his left cheek. Kira had used trickery to get around his defense line, making him think she'd used her shadows to disappear during a sand attack when she'd really burrowed under ground in an earth style and come up behind him when he'd been watching the shadows in the room.

His sand had thrown her away before she could do much more then smash a tonfa down on his shoulder near his neck. She hadn't hit him too hard, just enough to break his sand armor, enough for him to know if she'd been using her blade it could have done real damage. The blade on one of her tonfa's had landed the only other 'hit' Kira had managed. She eyed the gourd on the ground; the strap on it was fraying in one area, towards the middle. Gaara was extremely fast, and his defenses were almost impossible to get through, but she'd snuck around one other time using her shadows and jumped out to cut him across his armored vest. He'd dodged it for the most part, of course, her blade only nicking the strap of his weapon, cutting a few threads in it.

He hadn't let her get close after that, though she'd certainly tried. It had taken her nearly 30 minutes to concede defeat and sit down where she was now. She'd only had one other idea, and Kira just didn't have the energy left to really use it.

The Stone Familiar justu was still new to Kira. She'd never used it in battle and only used it at all twice after the original summoning. She was still trying to figure out how to use the sister spirits properly. She would need to soon enough; it would be a resource she would need in the war. Maybe Kankurō had some ideas.