Training in the Mist

A burst of pale-blue chakra rushed from Ate's shoulders, sending him backwards like jet-engines, pushing him far out of the way of the slash as he floated through the sky.
"Oh look, all i have to do is insult his pride, are you Valley nin really so easy to provoke?" Ate called out, calmly firing a punch-strength gravity pulse at the kid's chest.

He was getting better, he had the motivation now, but he was now blinded by rage. He needed to get better at compartmentalising emotion. He wasn't afraid of being killed by this lad, he barely registered as a threat, but he had potential, that was enough to warrant provoking him. In all honesty, Ate didn't really have any predjudice against the Valley, but harsh words were a necessary evil.

“Your lucky. If you hadn’t of worn your armor you would know what pain was.” Tsukiakara said landing. He charged once again this time aiming his sword for a lunge on the samurai’s stomach. The sword Tsukiakara was using was known as a Moonsword. Moonsword are not able to harm the flash of any living thing. Instead it by passes skin and cut internal organs, and blood vessels. Without a wound, the blood is trapped in the body casing un-imaginable pain and damage.

"Really, a lunge? A swordsman only lunges after opening his opponent's guard, its easy to have your guard open in turn. Are all you Valley nin such novices?" he chuckled, laughing in the kid's face.
Dissappearing in a slipspace rupture, Ate materialised behind Tsukiakara and flicked him in the back of the head before jetting away once more in a short hiss of plasma. Another grav pulse hissed forth from his fingertip, aimed at the young swordsman's backside just to humiliate him.

“Arghh” he cried in pain. He was going to get this bastard if it was the last thing he did. He turned around and threw his sword at the floating samurai. It spin in a clock-wise circle extremely fast. Tsukiakara did some more hand signs. “Tied heart style: 20 sword dance” Just like before 20 orbs of light appeared and sword took there place. The previously summoned swords returned back into orbs and disappeared. Now all twenty tied-heart swords charged at the samurai.

"Shinra-freaking-tensei" Ate barked, the air around him suddenly spinning and contorting along with the light passing through it, rain drops splashing away from him in a thin spray. The swords bounced harmlessly away from the gravity vortex, pulled away and around the floating mercenary before spinning out of control behind him.
"You mean you havn't learnt that direct attacks aren't gonna cut it? Are you all stupid is well?! Bloody hell, i could squash your entire military like ants if i tried" Ate proclaimed in stern, condescending tone, the best he could muster. Kid was still angry, he needed to learn to keep his head cool.

Granted, there was a five second recharge time after using a full-stregth shinra-tensei, but this wasn't too-o-o-o much of a problem. Ate was perpetually prepared for any situation, he had other defences.
"C'mon! you havn't hit me yet!" he called, smugly.

He hated to admit it but the samurai was right. Tsukiakara needed to attack him indirectly. He only posesed one technique that could possible do that. The tie-heart swords bounce off the ground and howered there not going for another attack (yet). Quickly Tsukiakara used the hand seals “Ram, Boar, Ox, Dog, Snake”. His glowing blue sword suddenly appeared in his right hand by teleporting its self. He jumped into the air to attack him with another diagonal slash.

Really, a jumping move? Jumping is exceptionally stupid in a fight, despite what alot of ninja would have you know. It eliminates all balance and ability to change your direction. Easy pickings.
Calmly pointing his finger towards his opponent Ate fired a full-strength gravity-pulse, not even bothering to call it this time. Fully charged, Shinra-Tensei was something comparable to being hit with an eighteen-wheeler truck, and this muppet had jumped straight into it. Ate had gauged it though, it would hurt, it wouldn't kill him. It wasnt physical impact that hurt from a gravity-pulse, more the sudden change in momentum, like a car crash.
Just to be safe, the mercenary charged his personal kinetic barrier, a thin layer of kinetic-chakra over his body, invisible to the naked eye, that let out a kinetic blast equal in strength to anything hitting it to negate the attack. Of course, charge was limited, but it wasnt too much of a problem.
"Will you ever learn?!" he chided.

The plan had indeed worked. Tsukiakara crash landed onto the ground only to turn into a puff of smock revealing on of his swords. The substitution justu was complete. The real Tsukiakara was hiding in the shadows waiting for his substitute to get attacked. Tsukiakara once again did a jump move this time from the samurai’s flank. “Looking for someone?!” He said. His sword glowed even brighter as he held it in both hands. The valley ninja lifted his sword and prepared for a vertical slash right on the samurai’s head.

Ate laughed to himself, he knew the substitustion was coming, one of the swords was heavier than the others and the visible boy's mass had changed. Exactly why he charged his kinetic barrier so highly. The mercenary calmly turned to the boy and smiled at him from behind his visor, even adding a cheeky wave just for added effect.

Tsukiakara's blade found itself repulsed about an inch away from Ate's shoulder, a white flare of light erupting from the impact and recoiling his sword with the same momentum as he swung it, more than enough to knock the boy backwards, down to the ground.

"Calling out a surprise attack? Now that IS dumb. If i didnt know exactly where you were anyway that would have alerted me fast enough. Your mouth is obviously faster than your sword" Ate laughed at him, jetting backwards in a curt chakra-brust and suddenly increasing gravity's pull on the boy, pulling him down to the floor three times as fast as the earth normally would. That should throw him off.

Tsukiakara landed on his back again. This time harder then he has ever felt before. “Arrggh” he gave yet another cry of pain. But this didn’t stop his resolve. He stabbed his sword into the ground and used it to lean on to stand back up. The young valley ninja looked back into his enemies eyes still with a look of hatred. Suddenly that look changed. He had the look as if an invisible sword just stabbed him in the back. The side effects of using his swords were starting to take effect. His mind and body could no longer function and he fainted. There was a plopping sound as he face landed in the muddy ground.

Ate sighed, floating calmly to the muddy floor and walking across its surface as if it were solid, kneeling down by the unconcious young swordsman. Calmly rolling him onto his front and wiping the mud away from his face with a previously-clean sleave, Ate retreived a military ration pill from a pouch on his duster and placed it inside the boy's mouth, forcing his head back so he'd swallow it.
With that done, the swordsman retreated into the air, lifting the boy to his feet with a rather more gentle gravity-pulse.
"C'mon kid, where's all that resolve gone? You aren't allowed to fall asleep, im not done humiliating you!" the Samurai bellowed over the storm, trying to snap the boy awake.

“Oh my head” Tsukiakara said as he sat up. He held his hand on his head which had a very bad migraine head-ache. “Where am I? Do I know you?” the valley ninja started asking. He couldn’t remember the events that have happened in the last couple of minutes.

"Oh for fuck sake" Ate grumbled as he realised the kid had hurt himself with his own attack. Muppet.
Materialising next to him, the swordsman cast a kinetic barrier then set up a partial slipspace leak, making time pass so fast within the barrier that the outside world refused to move. With a simple prod to the head, Ate accurately judged the problem, a few broken synapses in the cerebral cortex. With a nudge from his space/time chakra, Ate kick-started the boy's immune system and localised a further time speed-up within his brain, fixing his memory bank almost immediately. By all rights, the kid should be marginally smarter now, but he also regained all his lost memories of the last few minutes.
He dismissed the field and to the outside world it was like nothing had ever happened; Ate was calmly floating in the air once more.

Tsukiakara remembered but his rage had subsided. Nothing he did worked. Even his last resort didn’t work. And now he had just wasted half his life trying to get even with this guy. Who the fuck was he? Tsukiakara slammed his fist into the ground in his frustration. How was he supposed to become a jonin if he couldn’t even scratch a ronin? The rain continued to fall onto him hiding the tears he was shedding.

"Stop having a tantrum and GET A GRIP" Ate roared at him, his gentle floating gait in stark comparison to the scolding words erupting from his maw.
"If this was a fight to the death, would you give up this easily? Would you just admit defeat and get chopped to bits simply because you're outclassed? You wouldn't you'd fight your hardest because all you could. Right now you're being a child, a disgrace to your entire god-damn military. GET.THE FUCK.UP!!!"
A gravity pulse flew from his palm, smacking Tsukiakara across the jaw, essentially a long-range slap in the face.

Tsukiakara put his hand on his jaw where the long-range slap hit him. If this was a fight to the death, he would have been chopped to bits long before all of this. What was this guy tiring to fuck with his mind for. But anyway his next move would be one of flight rather than fight. He sheathed his glowing blue sword. He need to examine this guy’s attacks and he couldn’t do when he was getting his ass kicked. The twenty swords floated in the air once more. “Tied Heart Style: Human mimicking” All the swords then turned into clones of Tsukiakara. The only draw back to this was they couldn’t be used as sword while they were like this and their only attack was a simple punch or kick. 5 of the clones jumped up at the samurai while the real Tsukiakara went to one of the tree’s to hid out for a while.

"Aiiiyah! Will this boy ever learn!?" Ate screamed to the world in general, summoning gravity-vortexes within the clones and destroying them outright.
"I can tell where you AND i can tell which one is the real you through virture of your gosh-darn mass and density boy! Wan't me to scream all my weaknesses at you!" he added, sending another long-range slap at him in his hiding spot behind the tree.
"Think! Analyse everything i've shown you already, what i can and cant do, find a weakness! You arent going to beat me just by charging or simple trickery!"

Tsukiakara rubbed his check from the slap again. So he knew where he was. Damn. And that little attack revealed nothing that Tsukiakara already knew. That his opponent can manipulate matter and gravity. He must have had a weakness. He just had to. Now justu was that powerful without having some drawbacks. He just had to focus. As long as he was only get slapped he could concentrate more. Ok, time for another test attack. He didn’t have any long or mid ranged jutsus, just his throwing kunai. And now his clones where reduced to 15. They all jumped at Ate all in different directions surrounding him. There was even a clone that had the space above and another below him.

"haha, cottoning on, are you?" Ate called out to him, calling forth a Shinra Tensei gravity-pulse to shield him from the flurry of attacks. This was the problem with gravity-control, it takes alot of concentration. For area damage, one can only pull in one direction, multiple vortexes in one go is too complicated for even Kage-level users to manage easily.
Attacked from all directions, Ate could only repel, not actively attack.

With the clones repelled, the swordsman dashed backwards, jetting through the air, a kinetic-bolt erupting from his finger-tips. The white, blinding bullet slammed into the tree Tsuki was hiding behind, exploding like a grenade and ripping it apart just above the boy's head. A falling tree would be enough to make him move...

Tsukiakara say the attack and how the clones had survived unlike the others. ‘Was that the weakness he wondered?’ He wondered. But he had to get out of his hiding spot as the tree we was in was collapsing. Jumping out he ran to the place where he made the ice wall and drew the sword from the ground. Ok it was time to test another theory. The young valley ninja looked at his opponent and stayed swinging his sword around forming ice balls once more. With such a large quantity of ice balls he would have to focus his energy on them. If his theory was right this would give his clones and opening to surrounding him again and hopefully land a hit. The pieces were in place. It was time to see if it would work.

Ate saw this coming, kid was getting smarter. With a burst of chakra, the samurai catapulted himself further into the air, higher than any nearby buildings, watching the ice-bombs whizz past and the irritated looks on the sword-clones.
Extending his top fingers and gripping hard on his forearm, he charged a chakra-pulse. A blinding-white plasma-flash erupted from his hand and kinetic-bolt slammed into the ground, exploding like a kilogram of C4 and dismissing the clones in a rush of white flame. While flashy, that was really no more of a chakra-drain than your standard fireball jutsu.

"You're getting better at this, kid" Ate laughed, pleased with himself. He was excited now, truely excited, eager to see if this young swordsman could calculate a weakness in his attacks.

Tsukiakara and his clones dodged the incoming ball of plasma. His enemies speed was a very big problem. He had to slow him down some how. The question was how? His lightning techniques were all close to medium range. This guy was a long range user. But this samurai must be using his chakra which meant at some point he would run out. However, he had those pills that seemed to restore chakra but he must have a limit of those too. So the only way was to let him ware himself out. Judging from what Tsukiakara has tried before his opponent wouldn’t ever attack unless provoke by an attack Tsukiakara made. Which meant he would have to feign attacking until this guy got empty. The clones however ran out of chakra and needed to be summoned back. So they revered back to yellow orbs and disappeared. “Tied Heart Style: 25 sword dance” 25 fresh new swords took their place. There was no need for them to become clone. Instead he would use them as a last resort in case he couldn’t dodge an attack his opponent threw at him. Time to start attacking. He swung his ice sword to make huge cones of Ice appear out of the ground. With another swing of the sword the tipped part of the cones started fling at Ate, each in a different direction.

Good, go-o-o-o-od, he was cottoning on that at mid-range the best form of defence is offence, lots and lots of dakka. Of course, Ate wasn't going anywhere near his full, but that would be both swift and boring. The lad wouldnt learn anything if he was just beaten down in an instant.
Now, seeing as he had mid-range combat clocked, it was time to totally mess up every plan he came up with. While Ate's mid and long range attacks were powerful and accurate, they were more bewildering than most because they were so unique. Close-quarters was his real forte.
Wings of fiery azure light erupting from his shoulder blades, the armour-clad warrior dashed erratically across the battlefield, swirling and spinning between the ice spires, and swiftly closed the gap between him and his target. The random jolts of movement were merely to make him harder to hit and confuse the opponent, but it took chakra to suppress inertia and not explode his own chest from the momentum changes.
Flashing into range, Ate launched an almighty cross-punch from Tsuki's left flank, the damage and speed added to by his momentum. To make sure the promising young warrior didnt explode into giblets at the impact, he pulled the punch at the last moment, reducing the force enough so that it would hurt but not be totally fatal.

(just a sidenote, Ate's chakra-dashes are nothing ridiculously advanced, merely comparable to a standard ninja body-flicker technique without the added stealth. It merely replaces the smoke and concealment with rapid random movement to confuse the enemy)

Tsukiakara continued to try and slow his opponent by sending more and more cones of ice even though he was dodging everyone and approaching him very fast. Tsukiakara didn’t bother to move out of the way, probably a huge mistake on his part as he saw as the samurai was aiming for a punch from his behind. But luckily as he prepared when there was an attack he could not dodge his swords could take the hit. And so they did by throwing the sides of themselves in Tsukiakara’s defense. Some of the swords bent as they took the punch but for the most part they stayed intact. Now that his opponent was closer he was going to freeze the both of them with his sword. The Ice started forming all around them. Only by moving extremely fast was his opponent going to get away.

"Ha-ha! Brilliant!" Ate cried, realising he'd been lured. The young swordsman was finally getting the hang of this, actually thinking about his retaliations. Of course, that made him more difficult to fight when one was pulling his punches, but 'difficult' and 'interesting' were synonimous words in the mind of Atehameru Heishi.
Unleashing a chakra-burst from his feet, Ate jetted into the sky, craters thumping into existence where he once stood. A sudden clang, a sound like shattering glass that screeched over the storm, his shoulder caught the enclosing ice on his way up, sending him off balance. The aerial swordsman struggled with his own momentum for a moment, righting himself.
"ALmost had me there, lad! I'm starting to enjoy this!" he called down to him, his wide, infernal grin concealed by his face-plate.
"Shinra-TENSE-E-E-E-I-I!" the mercenry roared, unleashing a gravity-crush big enough to hit the entire ice-dome Tsuki had used to try and snare him. With any luck, it'd collapsed on its user; a delicious amount of irony would be involved. It seemed, now, that the swordsman had prevented his own escape from enemy attack. Granted, it would hurt more if there was no dome in the way, but oh well.