fandomtownies | The Preserve, Monday Evening

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The Preserve, Monday Evening

After running into Ino, Kabuto definitely needed to go do his intended training.

Dressed in his training gear, Kabuto found a secluded spot to work out. Unlike Ino, who had been ~~handwavily~~ working on her chakra control, Kabuto was focused more on his taijutsu, or hand-to-hand combat.

Hands glowing with blue energy, he worked out his frustrations with a kata workout pattern.

(open! also just one part of a biiiig preserve, so...yes)

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Cassandra did most of her combat training on the roof or in the salle, but she did spend quite a bit of time out in the preserve running and practicing climbing and sneaking. She blinked and froze in place when she spotted Kabuto, taking some time to watch him.

Kabuto wasn't the best at taijutsu, but he wasn't terrible, either. It was obvious that he had something on his mind, his movements a little jerkier than necessary, kicks lower than they would be if he knew he was being watched. He didn't even notice Cassandra, which was the biggest tell-tale sign that he wasn't all there.

She noticed that he didn't notice, but she didn't know him well enough to realize that he should have. So instead of judging him distracted, she just reevaluated him as less dangerous than she had first thought.

Cassandra shifted slightly and began circling around him to get a view from a different angle, not really trying to hide.

Finally, Kabuto noticed her. He brought his workout to a halt, only breathing a little heavier than normal. "Good evening."

After looking up at the sky to confirm that he was right about the time of day, she nodded back. "Need practice," she told him.

"This is as good a place as any to get it." Kabuto shrugged, watching her. "I can always use more practice. It is impossible to know when something may require a fight."

That was a sentiment Cassandra could agree with. She considered him for a moment, "Have a teacher?"

Kabuto raised his eyebrows. "At home," was his reply.

Well, that was good. But... "Here?"

"I have no desire for one." Kabuto was just a little bit prickly. "I'm a medical ninja. I rarely resort to this style of combat."

Cassandra shrugged. "Better not to fight," she agreed.

Kabuto didn't mind fighting; he just preferred to fight on his own terms. "How has your day been?" Inane topics of conversation were always fun.

That was a serious question, so Cassandra took some time to consider it. Eventually she found the right word to describe it.

"Quiet."

"Hmm." Kabuto pulled at the sleeve of his rarely-worn outfit, annoyed at the distraction of it. He obviously needed to work with it more and get used to it again. "Quiet is not necessarily a bad thing." Kabuto liked quiet, himself.

"Good," she agreed. She tilted her head again, thinking. Eventually she asked, "Ino?"

"What about her?" Mmm, evasive.

Cassandra shrugged in a sort of 'never mind' gesture. Instead of pursuing the Ino question she pointed at his hands, "Blue." It was sort of a question.

"Chakra." Kabuto raised his hand, letting the energy flow into it like blue fire.

"Why?" she asked, not understanding what it was for. After all, it wasn't very stealthy.

"Medical ninja." Kabuto smiled. "I can do more with a just a touch."

Cassandra held out one arm to request a demonstration.

Kabuto lifted an eyebrow. "Are you sure?"

She nodded, not really worried about what he might do.

Shrugging, Kabuto clasped his hand around Cassandra's forearm, sending a small burst of chakra through her. It was a very small amount, just enough to feel like a mild electric shock - one that would go through a person's entire system, not just at the point of impact.

He was keeping his big tricks to himself, right now.

Cassandra didn't blink. The only sign that she'd felt anything was the curious way she cocked her head as she looked down at her arm. "Interesting," she decided. But not impressive.

Kabuto shrugged. She didn't have to be impressed. If she thought he wasn't holding back, then she wasn't worth demonstrating his real ability, anyway.

While not impressed, she was wondering how he used that in combat. "Spar?"

"If you wish." It had been a long time since Kabuto had done anything against a real opponent. Still, he wasn't going to go all-out.

She slipped into a fighting stance with a slight grin and waited.

Kabuto's preferred style of fighting involved more thrown weapons, but those were locked away for the moment. It was almost a good thing, in a way; it required him to focus more on his taijutsu.

Maybe.

There was a part of Kabuto that just wanted to get this over with and walk away. His hands lit up with blue chakra energy, and he had no problem taking the first offensive, lashing out at Cassandra with an open-handed strike.

She saw it coming and could have dodged it, but she was curious about the blue glowy stuff. So she moved just too late to get out of the way, letting the blow glance off her shoulder.

The chakra that buzzed around Kabuto's hands and then through Cassandra's system was different than before. This was an entirely different surge, one that took each of Cassandra's nerves and rewired them, changing triggers from moving one muscle, to moving a different one entirely.

He'd decided in that split-second that he wasn't really interested in a full-on spar.

Cassandra started to move smoothly into an elbow strike to Kabuto's face, except that instead her knee folded forward. Her eyes widened in surprise, but instead her fingers clenched into a sudden fist. For someone like Cassandra it was like being suddenly made to speak a language you've never heard.

She tried to throw herself backwards, to open up some space between them and buy herself time to adjust to whatever he'd done, but instead she ended up folding to the ground.

Kabuto watched her, smirking slightly. He always enjoyed watching the results of this; it was much better to watch the results than to be the results, as he had been the first time he'd experienced this particular technique. "As I'm sure you'd agree if you could, it's...useful."

There was no answer, of course. Cassandra writhed on the ground. It wasn't a violent sort of movement, it could have been described as controlled if it weren't so obviously uncontrolled.

Kabuto sat back on his heels, just watching Cassandra. The fact that she was trying to solve the Rubik's cube puzzle he'd made of her nerves only raised his respect for her. Even if she wasn't making much progress, the fact that she was trying was a good sign.

"If you would like me to set you straight, don't move." It was the easiest way to signal, really. "Otherwise, feel free to continue trying. It's interesting to watch." Kabuto was taking copious amounts of mental notes.

Cassandra didn't stop moving. She knew that she wasn't getting very far, but she had been raised in a very harsh school. Growing up, failure hadn't been an option, and it wasn't here either. So she kept writhing in a seemingly-random fashion.

This could take a while.

Again, Cassandra raised Kabuto's opinion of her. He smiled, taking out another of his cards and adding the new notes on her to the information he already had. She was fascinating, from a completely research-oriented perspective.

What Kabuto was doing went unnoticed as Cassandra continued to writhe. She was even making progress... As long as you counted the ability to make her left hand jerk around slightly less than it had been as a sign progress.

Kabuto walked over to Cassandra touched her forehead, sending another burst of chakra through her system to negate the effects. He would have waited for it to just wear off, but it was getting cold.

"That was interesting. Thank you."

She shot him an angry scowl at cutting her off, but it was spoiled by a slight shiver. It was getting cold, and at the rate she was going she would have succumbed to hypothermia before she could have managed to walk anywhere warm.

Standing up, she brushed her clothes somewhat clean from thrashing around on the ground. She took a moment to consider before offering Kabuto a respectful bow. He had, after all, taught her something. Then she simply turned and walked back toward the dorms.

Kabuto bowed back, smirking before taking to the treetops in a faster way back to the dorms.

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The Preserve, Monday Evening

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