"Traps? Who me?" Kotetsu straightened, grinning up at Oyate with a guileless grin. He hadn't been intending to trap the place - he'd tried that once with Ryuichi and the bastard pounded him into the floor in response. But analysing the field before anything - a spar, a fight, a battle - was always good practice.

Oyate looked like he was dressed for a proper taijutsu spar - loose clothing for ease of movement, but not too loose as to afford good holds. He himself was dressed similarly, sweats that weren't quite baggy to help disguise intent, a short sleeved ragged tee so that if it got ripped up in the process - some people got enthusiastic - he wouldn't mind too much.

"But if the nasty moves involve jutsu," Kotetsu said, moving towards the centre of the room, "Then all bets are off." He grinned at Oyate and spread his hands. Look, no weapons. "Wanna check the room out first, if you don't trust me?" Ryuichi insisted on checking all the time now. Spoilsport.

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"Knowing what I do of you, it's always a good idea to check for traps anyway. Besides," she stepped into the room and quickly took in the familiar sight. "I need to remember the dimensions better." She walked along the walls, taking long strides to imitate most of a back flip. It was always a good thing to know exactly where she was in a space - especially in a confined room. Knowing exactly how much space she had before she'd be pinned to a wall had saved her body and reputation in more than a few cases.

"I hardly ever use jutsu on teammates, this is for the sake of taijutsu, isn't it?" She quirked an eyebrow at him and continued her patrol around the room, occasionally running a hand along the wall for old time's sake. She'd had some great learning experiences in here. It was still amazing to her that after a year of service in ANBU she still could find someone who could nearly pound her into the floor. And that meant she had that much more incentive to get better, faster. So she could pound them back. Those spars were always the best ones.

But this would be her first spar with Kotetsu and he himself had professed that taijutsu wasn't his strongest suit. That didn't mean she would hold back too much, his response to her movements and how fast he did so would determine how much of herself she'd put in this. Either way, she was going to have a blast doing it.

Ayumi finished her circle of the walls and tapped the battered molding that surrounded the door. Her usual habits concluded, Ayumi strode out into the middle of the room, not far from Kotetsu. "Ready when you are," she sank into a loose crouch and grinned.

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Kotetsu had been watching Oyate do a circuit of the room, noting how professional Oyate was - measuring body-lengths? - and then he was right in front of Kotetsu again, in a low easy crouch. Kotetsu couldn't help but grin back - it was always good to try sparring with new people and Oyate's enthusiasm was infectious.

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Generally with non-taijutsu-specialist spars Ayumi let the other person strike first, but she was more anxious for this fight than most. It had just been far, far too long since she'd had a spar at all. And she would apologize to Kotetsu if she bruised him too much. Though with how he sparred with Ryuichi...perhaps there wouldn't be much need for apology.

First, she'd need to test how fast his reflexes were. And the most entertaining way would be fun with Kotetsu. He was just about the perfect height for it, too...

She charged forward suddenly, jumping up at the last second, flipping her feet above her. She reached out and gripped his shoulders firmly, swinging around with all of her forward momentum. She'd aim for his thighs -- hitting his knees would just be cruel.

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Fast, and Oyate didn't even try to start off the spar with the basic courtesies. Fortunately, Kotetsu had long since been trained out of it by his sensei, and had it hammered all the way home by Ryuichi. Kotetsu didn't even try to dodge - he felt the other shinobi grab his shoulders and Kotetsu dropped, hard and twisting to the side so as to throw whatever plan he had out of the way.


Use momentum to gain advantage - Oyate was in the air, and currently off balance. Kotetsu was on the ground and spinning to roll and get him off if need be.

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Huh. So he did have some speed... Ayumi completed her flip and instead of pushing off his legs, she headed for the floor. Landing first in a handstand, she pushed off again to regain all of her balance and landed on her feet, now a good distance from Kotetsu. Her grin was even broader and she had one hand resting on the floor since it had been difficult to balance so quickly. Plus, it looked like she had more style, didn't it?

"Impressive," she said, charging again. This time she didn't try to jump, no. This time she was in it for the long haul - be it her shoulder or a fist that connected.

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And then Oyate was charging him, and all of his body language said he was all for hitting him. Solid. Kotetsu rolled upright and grabbed his fist, the force of it reverberating all the way through his arm and to his shoulder, forcing Kotetsu to take a step back to compensate for it. But that was all he took, just one and then he spun on a heel to pull Oyate forward and off balance, aiding him in his fall with a sharp kick to the back of Oyate's knee.

He kept a good grip on Oyate's fist, yanking his arm to follow in an arc - it meant that Oyate was down and pulled across, and with just another step, Kotetsu could lock his arm behind his back...

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Huh. So he wanted to wrestle, did he? That was just fine by Ayumi. She let him pull her off balance and as she fell Ayumi latched onto his pant leg, jerking it out and underneath her with all the strength she could muster.

Kotetsu's legs didn't put up much of a fight.

As predicted, she landed on his leg and the floor, rolling away and kicking out as she did so. She only managed to make contact with his leg before scrambling back to her feet. There would likely be bruises, but that was expected in a spar like this. Ayumi twisted around to face him and her grin was just as wide as before. This was going to be fun, lots and lots of fun.

"Your turn," she flashed him a glimpse of her teeth. "Give me the best charge you can."

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One moment he was upright, and the next he was down, air knocked out of him with a sharp crack that was just short of a concussion because he'd managed to break fall properly with a slap of his free hand - and he'd let go of Oyate at once. Oyate hadn't taken advantage of it, which testified to his 'just a spar'. Most shinobi wouldn't have waited.

Kotetsu rolled to his feet, flicking hair out of his face. "Heh, my best might shock you," he grinned, and sped straight towards Oyate, veering off at the last second with a twist, grabbing for his shoulder - or arm - to yank him in an unexpected semicircle. A semi-circle and he swept out a foot as he dropped his body, yanking hard on Oyate to slam him onto the floor. Like Oyate, Kotetsu was grinning, the exhilaration of being in a spar with someone new giving him a hot surge of energy.

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She could've slipped out of his grip, but she really did want to see what kind of a blow he could do. And that meant she had to use both of her arms to break her fall. Her body complained at the impact and she felt her breath flee. He certainly could throw a person. Not that she was much of a heavyweight anyway.

Ayumi coughed and then rolled up onto her shoulders, snaking out her legs and wrapping them around his neck. One jerk and he was laying across her. "Gotcha!"

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Oyate was just like a snake - all whip-cord moves and unexpected twists. If he hadn't gone limp at just the right moment, he might have gotten a broken neck. Now he was dragged across Oyate's slim body and ack, he was in a position rather difficult to extricate himself from.

Well, there was a way to get out of it - Oyate was clearly delighted with having immobilized him - pin the head and the rest follows - but then, Oyate'd put him in a rather good position to do the same back. He braced, and then kicked out at Oyate's head, intending to catch him in the jaw.

What he hadn't expected was the rather unexpected body contours under his knee.

"What the -- You're a girl?!"

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She should've known that he would be able to slither around, too, let alone going for her head -- but she certainly had forgotten the unique pain that went along with a lot of compression on her feminine physique. Ayumi let out a wheeze and then tried to wiggle her way out of the pressure. It didn't work.

Of course he'd ask an inane question like that and not stop the pain...

"Yeah, genuis." She released his neck and then shoved him off. Ayumi wiggled and squirmed away, sitting up and rubbing at the offended tissue. "Ow," she bit her lip. "That stings."

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He would have attempted to wriggle off hi-- no, her, if he hadn't been in such shock. And now Oyate was doing it anyway, shoving him off like so much dead meat and, just...

"I'm sorry!" Kotetsu rolled to his feet and was at complete loss as to what to do with his hands. His face was probably hot enough to burn eggs on and he couldn't believe that he hadn't noticed she was a girl. Or that he'd actually mistaken her for one. Hadn't he thought she was a girl at first glance? Maybe?

"I thought you were a guy!"

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"I get that sometimes," she sighed and rubbed at her offended breast a few more times. Ayumi determined that it wasn't going to get any better or worse and let it be. "I'm small chested anyway," she sighed and looked at Kotetsu, blinking at how red his face was.

"You okay?"

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"Yeah. I mean." Normally wasn't it the other way round? "Are you okay?" he shoved his hands into his sweat-pants pockets, and tried to look harmless. "I thought you were a guy. Honest. I wouldn't have..."


Only, where was the angry protests of outraged modesty? Girls almost always did that from his observation.

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"Yeah, it hurt an' all, but I got more surprised than anything." Ayumi shrugged and got to her feet, stretching out her arms above her head. "But I've taken worse. Good job, though. Sorry that I uh...confused you or whatever." She frowned. "I probably should have said my first name, too. It's Ayumi, by the way."

She grinned and bowed her head. "Oyate Ayumi. And you?"

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"Hagane Kotetsu," Kotetsu said, finally getting his mouth to work properly. "I really thought you were a guy." Most girls wouldn't take that as a compliment - hell, he knew very few guys who'd take being mistaken for a girl as a compliment too! - but Ayumi seemed perfectly fine with it. "I... um. I guess..." Most girls didn't spar with guys too.


Except she had been fairly happy about doing it, and she had managed to pin him and...


He was confused. And wanted to hide in his room for the next few weeks because things like this kept happening to him. Maybe ANBU just hated him in general.

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She raised an eyebrow at the comment he kept saying over and over again. "Are you sure you didn't hit your head or something? 'Cause you keep telling me you thought I was a guy." Ayumi stepped closer and stood on her tiptoes to look at his head, narrowing her eyes to peer through his hair for a bruise or cut. "And I get it, I really do. It's not a big deal. It's happened a few times. And it's certainly not like I look much like a girl."

Ayumi scoffed and dared to lift a hand and push aside the hair above his right ear and peer closer. "I didn't even attend more than a fourth of a kunoichi class. Got myself booted on purpose. Never been happier."

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Kotetsu flinched back, catching her hand. "Oy," he said. An automatic reaction - most people didn't let others get deadly weapons near their faces, and a shinobi's hands definitely qualified. But it was a spar, a fellow ninja and Kotetsu dropped his hand, scowling like she was another kid who wanted to take his toys from the sandbox. And honestly, finding out that Oyate was Ayumi and was a girl didn't change things. Just that she'd gotten his head in a lock, but he'd managed to kick her one in the jaw.


Heh.


"I didn't hit my head," he said, almost huffily. "Just worried you were concerned, is all." If she wasn't going to take issue with it, then he wasn't going to.

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She flexed her jaw - it was going to bruise probably - and frowned at him. "Okay, if you're sure then." Ayumi dropped her hand and took a step back. She didn't know Kotetsu well enough to stay that close to him all the time. Besides, maybe he didn't like her being that close in times other than in spars. "And really, don't worry about me. I might as well be a guy, aside from the cookin' and stuff. Aoba always says that I should've been born a boy. Then again, he's usually picking on me then. So who knows what he means by that." She shrugged and did a slow back flip to stretch out the rest of her body, staying in a handstand for a moment before completing the flip and letting out a heavy sigh.

"Still up for more? Or are you done for now?"

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"Are you up for more?" Kotetsu said, fluffing his hair back into place. "I can always keep going." Far be it for him to let others think he got intimidated by a girl. 'Sides, lots of kunoichi he knew were as good at fighting as the next guy - just trickier. Only he had to be sure that he didn't go grabbing her by accident.


He shifted his weight to his left leg, keeping his stance easy and light. "Unless you don't want to."

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"Me? Not want to spar?" She scoffed and sank into an offensive crouch, both arms low and to her sides, hands at the ready. "That's like saying I hate sugar." Her lips erupted into an enormous grin. "Just gotta make sure we don't pummel each other bad enough to leave more than a bruise or two, right?"

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"Do you hate sugar?" Kotetsu asked, grin cheeky, not bothering with the crouch because she was going to lunge up and that just meant he was going to back flip and roll. Maybe. "Bruises are fun, I could totally boast to Ryuichi that these are not caused by him and his homicidal tendencies."

He shifted, his feet widening their stance for a little more stability, and beckoned. "C'mon then."

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"You were at the bake sale, that should've been answer enough," she said before taking a slow breath and pumping a surge of chakra into her legs as she charged forward. The way Kotetsu was positioned made it obvious that he thought she'd attack upwards, so that just meant she'd have to take an alternate route. Down it was.

She moved so fast that Kotetsu didn't have time to move fully out of the way and she dropped to the floor, swinging a leg out and catching one of his, effectively throwing him completely off balance. With him still teetering she hooked her leg around his and pulled hard. Once he was flat on his back she'd aim to pin him to the ground again.

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Kotetsu was trying to get a good retort up for the bake-sale comment when he was tipped, twisted, and shit she was gunning to pin him. "Hey!" he said, one hand immediately going to his throat in case she tried a choke-pin - it could easily be turned into movement to flip himself back and hopefully wing her in the chin or jaw with his heel. A twitch with his sandal'd... nah, he wasn't sparring Ryuichi, and he'd said he wasn't going to bring in live steel with the spar with Ayumi. Maybe next time.


But his legs were tangled and she was all but slamming her full weight on his thighs, immobilising his legs. Kotetsu didn't even bother to growl, just grab her collar with his other hand and shove hard, across her chest, yanking the fabric across so that she'd choke.

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As expected, choking began. Ayumi only let it come out as a cough and she still came down, hoping she hadn't lost much momentum as she had paused to struggle to breathe. She jammed an elbow into his gut and sputtered again, glaring down at him -- before freezing.

There were feet a few steps behind Kotetsu's head. And only one person had toes and sandals like those.

He was back. Shin was back.

It didn't matter if she was turning pale, or choking, or even that she was staring at what would be an empty space to Kotetsu. Goosebumps were prickling up everywhere and she could only choke out a gasp. Where was Yuuichi? He had to be somewhere if blood was dripping down onto Shin's toes.

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Kotetsu had shoved hard, expecting her to fight, like punch him in the gut or something, and she had, though she looked like she might need to tap out while she just wheezed. However, the freezing and just going plain still was off the chart for weird.


"Ayumi?" he gasped out, easing his hold so she could breathe - maybe she was really sensitive to that sort of thing. He'd make a note of it. "Ayumi, you shoulda tapped out..."

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She didn't hear Kotetsu. Ayumi was far too busy trying not to stare at Shin's bloody toes and was only becoming more and more focused on it. A creak behind her was an obvious sign of Yuuichi. So at least she knew where they both were. Unfortunately, it still wasn't a comforting thought.

Breathing was forgotten as she stared and slowly forced herself to look upwards. Perhaps Shin was bleeding, but still in a good mood. She could always hope.

The chill went down her spine as his eyes said differently. Shin was baring bloody teeth and letting the blood pour out of the wound in his abdomen. Ayumi knew that in real life he should be bleeding much faster than the slow drip that fell onto his sandals, but reality was a distant cry from her current thoughts.

What had she done wrong? She hadn't even killed anyone in a violent manner on her last mission. And this was her first spar -- her first! -- since coming back. And they'd agreed to keep it bloodless, too. Why were they here?

Her lungs complained and the shuddering breath she inhaled brought Kotetsu's spiky hair back into her peripheral vision. He was still very much there. And he was speaking. Oh no. Oh no. She couldn't be seeing Shin and Yuuichi right now. Not right now.

She jerked her eyes from Shin after forcing her body to listen to her again and failed miserably at the smile she put on her face. "I...I guess I don't feel so well." Yes, feigning illness would do the trick. Say she felt sick, maybe she ate something bad? That was plenty plausible with the reputation the ANBU cafeteria had. Sure, she'd never gotten sick off anything Morimoto-san made, but she could always pull on the rumors.

Yuuichi must have taken another step closer as the floor creaked and Shin let out a scoff. They were going to corner her. She had to get out. Now.

"T-think we could call it a draw and a day? I..." Puke, yes, that would get him moving. "I think I might hurl."

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She looked green, like she wasn't able to hold it in. Kotetsu scrambled away out of immediate line of fire, and hovered uselessly. She was pale and green, and he hadn't thought that he'd kicked her that hard, not hard enough to make her bring up her latest meal. "Sure," he said, unsure if he should try and help her to the infirmary or not. "You're sick?" He hadn't known people could get sick from a choke-hold.

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Sick. It was sad how well that description actually could work. Drip, drip. Shin's blood continued to eek out of his body and she swallowed hard, sitting back onto her calves and trying desperately to breathe in deeply through her nose. At least they didn't usually make things smell. Not when there was so little blood still. There was hope yet, right?

"Yeah," she said finally, daring to open her eyes and look at Kotetsu. There was a definite sheen on her skin from the spar and from the terror, but it could always be chalked up as part of being sick, too.
"S'not your fault," she said, setting her hands gingerly on the ground in preparation to standing. One step at a time and she'd be fine.

A creak behind her.

Too late. Yuuichi was closing in.

"J-just the food," she whispered and shot upright, her face anything but its natural color. "S-sorry to scare you. I...I'll see you later, kay?"

There wasn't time to let him escort her. Or explain. Definitely no time to explain.

She just made a beeline for the door and didn't dare to react to how Shin swiveled his head to look at her and how Yuuichi gave her a maniacal grin. They would find her again soon enough. Now she just had to wait out their next assault and hope that she could avoid them.

Hope was a glimmering thing in the distance, though.

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Kotetsu blinked as Ayumi all but fled the room, and left him feeling somewhat let down, all the earlier energy and enthusiasm for a fight coiling unused and slightly sickened in his limbs. He couldn't shake the feeling that he'd missed something there - that somehow this was his fault. He couldn't see how it was, but she'd turned absolutely white when he'd choked her, so that had to be some cause, right?

She'd claimed it was food - food poisoning, perhaps? - before she'd bolted. Maybe it was. But obviously Kotetsu hadn't helped. Perhaps he should go see if she was alright, maybe she needed medical attention. He remembered vaguely that there were all sorts of conditions that could turn from 'mere' indigestion to something potentially lethal. He started out the door after her, but the corridor was empty.


And Kotetsu didn't know which was her room.


He'd just have to report it to the medic - Kanae-sensei, perhaps - and hope for the best.

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Before he'd even exited the room Ayumi was gone, long gone. Alone with her memories and a past that refused to let her be.

She closed her door behind her, but that would be nothing for Shin and Yuuichi. Cowering under the sheets, Ayumi could only hope that it would be over quickly. And that they would be merciful this time.

[Late Night Terrors directly follows this.]

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