[b]Sakamoto Isami[/b]
[b]TIME OF DAY ▸[/b] Late Morning
[b]LOCATION ▸[/b] Road to Kusagakure no Sato 
[b]INTERACTION ▸[/b] Uragiri-sensei [@Odin], Shinjo Tsubasa [@McHaggis], Kajiya Tatsuya [@Raijinslayer][center][color=black]—————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————[/color][/center][i]Did I make a mistake?[/i]

The shaft of his second arrow had shook as it caressed the bow-string, watching the jonin work their wonders. Tatsuya and Tsubasa had enthralled him as well with their deftness of movement, and the brilliant utility of their technique. There was a moment when Isami, eyes darting behind his amber lenses, had thought the battle shifting in their favor. The smith’s earthen technique offered him a sudden mobility, and Tsubasa’s instincts appeared to be an order above his own; if he could just keep up the ranged barrage, their sheer evasiveness and constant threat could… [i]would[/i] overcome their lone adversary.

The aftermath of their initial onslaught, however, smothered those thoughts in the cradle. 

He realized, then, the error of his thinking. Isami had believed that their performed, somehow, perfectly. The genin was mistaken. While each constituent aspect was performed well enough, their timing had left gaps - and, in any case, did not produce a threat that could overcome the jonin’s own trump. 

And so, it was their turn to brave the storm. To die, he mused to himself, as the katon unleashed. 

His father had always told him that the sign of mastery was when everything moved [i]just slowly enough[/i]. Before him, the sputtering flame and cracked earth, that gave way to the glow of the raikiri, were as if kaleidoscope fractals, moving like flakes in the blizzard, utterly beyond his senses. Outclassed. Of course he was. He worked hard, and that meant that - perhaps one day - he’d reach his pinnacle. But before then…

“Team 7! Go!” 

 Those who rested upon the precipice would not wait for the hard work.

His draw and pull still maintained, he [i]exploded[/i] to the left, putting sensei out of his arrow’s path. Swivelling on an axis, the trained marksman let loose as he felt his body coming to perfect, centered equilibrium.

He loosed.