Kanajiro saw the shuriken coming and managed to duck under them just in time, but the fire kind of obscured his view. He barely made it, but luck seemed to be on his side. But what he didn't see coming was the attack that Hayashi had launched against him. Kanajiro was impressed with the boys ability to maintain his composure through the fire, but it wouldn't be enough. Having only one free hand -- the other was going towards Hayashi after all -- he managed to block only one of the hands.
Hayashi's other fists connected with his collar bone, and the steel enhancement only made it that much more painful. But on the other hand, Kanajiro's own hand connected with the boys gut, and he could sense that while Hayashi might've hit harder due to his steel, he was also in slightly more pain due to the location he got hit in.
Kanajiro let out a slight wince, ''Tchk..''. He jumped back out of the fire, which was now settling down. The only rest he got however was a second, which was used to spot the oncoming kunai. Normally, Kanajiro would ignore the kunai and take it's sting, but there was nothing to be gained so he just slid out of the way. Kunai were powerful, but they demanded a different approach than just throwing them at random.
''Those are your word, Hayashi. I never said I was a big shot. And I don't think I am better than anyone else.'' Kanajiro started forming seals rapidly now, and something in his eyes changed. ''I prove it.'' He grinned at Hayashi as his hands erupted in flames. He wasn't sure if Hayashi knew the secret to the technique, that the heat radiating off of the Fiery Fists was enough to seriously burn someone without even hitting them. So perhaps Kanajiro was able to use that against him, by feigning to miss, but burn him at the same time.
He sprinted forwards and launched a flurry of attacks on Hayashi, sending his fist towards his face, and then pulling it back already to send his other fist towards the Hayashi's chest. To finish the attack he twisted around on his feet, launching a backwards heelkick aimed for the boys side. Luckily for Hayashi, Kanajiro hadn't yet mastered the technique well enough to put his feet in flames as well, but the kick would definetely hurt if he hit.
Hayashi saw Kanajiro weave handseals, and did so himself as well, he was gonna use more chakra into his Titanium Grip technique to further increase his durability and strength. He panted ever so slightly at the chakra consumption wearing the boy down ever so slightly. One could see a black layer of metal forming around Hayashi's hands, fingers and wrist, like a glove. He got his guard up, and as Kanajiro came and unleased his fury of attacks, Hayashi dodged them, swaying the side, using his boxing moves to remain on the move, and the attacks that got to close, he would quickly evade using his steel-coated hands, the fire not bothering him on those areas too much now, the problem came with the kick, as Kanajiro spun around, Hayashi quickly drew his hands back to his body, so to stop the kick from hitting him.
Due to the the nature of the titanium grip technique, Hayashi's arms were slightly too slow, leading to the foot hitting him in the chest before Hayashi could get a grip on the foot, but when Hayashi did, he grinned. "Gotcha." He said, as he spun himself around, throwing Kanajiro into the ground, like he would be skipping stones on the surface of water, he then lunged at Kanajiro, aiming to use his jab oriented fighting style to catch him off guard, as on the third jab with his left hand, he would also uppercut with his right.
Kanajiro was surprised to see the steel -- Hayashi had definetely improved his grasp of the steel release since the last time they met. It actually made him grin quite a bit, a sense of pride for his classmate overcoming him. Perhaps Kanajiro wasn't the only genius of Offense in the village. The steel release made the fire technique obsolete as long as he kept blocking it with his steel covered hands -- he'd have to hit him on bare skin.
But he didn't get the chance, as Kanajiro hit him with his foot, he grabbed it and spun around sending Kanajiro flying towards the ground, skipping over it. A trail of dust could lead Hayashi to Kanajiro's landing. But Kanajiro wasn't entirely caught off guard, and mid-flight pushed his hands into the ground below him so that he'd be able to flip himself onto his feet.
He was in time to see Hayashi coming in closer again but paid no mind to impending danger, his fists still aflame. Unlike Hayashi's special release, the chakra cost for the fire technique Kanajiro used wasn't as big and he still felt semi-fit chakra wise. For this reason, he chose to charge Hayashi as he charged Kanajiro -- he sent his own fists forward rather than block Hayashi's fists, as the fact that Hayashi would attack him would mean he didn't have the time to block and that was the perfect time for Kanajiro to hit Hayashi on bare skin.
His fist would go towards Hayashi's face, but at the same time he'd take the first jab from Hayashi into the chest. He tensed up his muscles right before the hit taking minimal damage, but it was no use with steel release -- the only way to beat Hayashi now was to simply take him down before Hayashi took Kanajiro down. The second punch of Kanajiro's went to the boys side, into his guts. Once again, Kanajiro felt Hayashi's jab hit on his jaw, but he managed to shake it off. It hurt as hell, but Kanajiro could take hits like a champion, and he managed to ignore the hit for that reason.
The third punch was sent to Hayashi's shoulder, but it was simple a feint -- the real technique being used was a quick kick to Hayashi's leg. It'd likely hurt as hell considering he'd kick right on the body joint, and it might just knock Hayashi over. That being said, Kanajiro only saw the uppercut until it was already too late. Not that he'd have blocked it regardless, because the fact that he jabbed and sent an uppercut meant that he was defenceless.
So in response to the jab and uppercut, he sent his other fist towards Hayashi's chest. The jab and uppercut Hayashi sent last both connected, sending Kanajiro stumbling back and unable to follow up on the kick and double punch he had pulled on Hayashi, but his expertise in tanking hits was showing off here as he managed to stay standing up -- the only notable reaction to Hayashi's punches being the blood that was now seeping from Kanajiro's corner of his mouth and his eyebrow.
Hayashi groaned as he felt the stinging sensation of the fire searing the outer layers of his flesh. The smell of burnt flesh was not too appealing, Hayashi thought, his skin hurt constant stinging. But the pain wasn't getting to him as much as the fact that his adversary was still standing, three jabs, one to the face and an uppercut, all laced with his thickest layer of steel, now that, is some impressive stamina right there, Hayashi thought to himself.
Hayashi felt his chakra running thin. He couldn't keep the titanium grip technique up for long, he had to change strategy. He started running towards Kanajiro, making the three seals neccesary for his next trick. He threw himself on Kanajiro, his arm around Kanajiro's ribs, aiming to wrestle the other genin to the ground. On the ground he quickly got back up onto his feet, hoping that Kanajiro was not so quick to do the same, for when his oppoent was getting onto his feet, Hayashi threw the steel wires he had just generated towards Kanajiro, the boy tried to catch the Hanamoto by the arm.
Kanajiro quickly got wrestled to the ground, the only fight back to that being an attempted elbow shoved into Hayashi's back. As soon as Hayashi had wrestled him down he got up again, which spelled bad news for Kanajiro because that meant the boy had something planned. He scrambled to get up, facing away from Hayashi to get some distance, but as he got on his feet again he felt the wires around his arm. At first, he seemed surprised with the wires, but quickly formed a plan. He wasn't stupid.
His free hand wrapped itself around the wires coming from Hayashi and Kanajiro pulled on them hard, pulling Hayashi towards Kanajiro with a powerful pull. Meanwhile, the wire-coated arm was pulled up -- and though it went sluggishly due to the somewhat heavy wires, it did reach the air. And as Hayashi would be pulled closer, Kanajiro stepped forward to gain some momentum and swung his steel-coated arm into Hayashi's facial area, somewhere around the neck or jaw. Now this was using someone's weapon against himself.
Hayashi quickly felt the wire being pulled and he grinned, for as Kanajiro pulled on the wire, Hayashi generated more wire, he took a step couple of steps forward as to feign his opponent, hoping to keep the other boy from realizing what he was doing, and as soon as Kanajiro swung his arm at Hayashi, Hayashi saw his opening, he quickly stepped backwards, one big step, used his free hand to grab onto the wiring, and with one heave he lifted his right leg, not the one Kanajiro had kicked, and stomped onto the wire, tightening it and effectively making a leash to pull Kanajiro to the ground, and hurting his swinging arm in the process.
Hayashi winced in pain, the burns combined with the chakra costs of his techniques and strategies were taking their toll on him, he prefered to keep fights from getting this drawn out. In the next instant, he released the wires from his fingers, and let go of it's grip, they had served their purpose, and once Hayashi stopped putting his chakra into them, they quickly lost their strength and steel like properties.
Kanajiro was pulled to the ground and he seemed impressed but angry at the tactic Hayashi had used here -- this wasn't offensive, this was trickery. He managed to get on one knee, not being pulled to the ground completely, but he could feel his arm slightly hurting. But he had two arms, not one, and he was sure to make Hayashi pay for this trick.
Hayashi hadn't stepped back or taken a bit of distance, which meant the perfect situation for Kanajiro. He pushed his feet into the ground when he was kneeled, and launched his fists into Hayashi's stomache, grabbing him by the collar while the boy was recoiling from the hit. Using the momentum, he'd run a bit forward with Hayashi in his hands, but could quickly feel that the steel weight added to Hayashi's own weight was too much to effectively carry around. But he could use it against him. Kanajiro stopped and let himself fall forward, letting one hand go of Hayashi's collar and swinging it back.
Hayashi would fall onto the ground rather hard, and would then see Kanajiro's arm swinging back and forth to send an elbow into his face. Though Kanajiro was quick, he had to use his still good arm to hold Hayashi in place, so the elbow strike would be a bit slower than usual because it hurt badly. After the elbow strike, Kanajiro would pull back his arm and attempt to headbutt Hayashi straight on his forehead.
Kanajiro knocked Hayashi to the floor, the Junnimaru quite impressed by the other's strength, that despite the hits he had taken, he was capble of throwing him around, he landed on the ground with a thud, a light groan letting out. The elbow came towards him, and Hayashi moved his head to the side, making Kanajiro's elbow hit the hard rock floor under him, Hayashi sat up right, headbutting Kanajiro on the nose, and afterwards he used his leg to push Kanajiro away from him, gathering some space between the two, Hayashi rolled backwards on the floor, and was back up on his feet, a few drips of blood running out of his mouth from the fall, and he could feel how his ribs were most definately bruised from the gut punch.
He stood there tapping on his feet, keeping his guard and his pose up, waiting for the next opening in Kanajiro's attack pattern.
Kanajiro's head got knocked back due to the headbutt Hayashi delivered onto him, and then got pushed off sending him stumbling back. He gritted his teeth and felt his nose, which hurt quite badly. Using the interrim between the punch-exchanges the two had been doing forever, he started forming seals. ''Bunshin no Jutsu.'' he said, calmly. Rather than be like Hayashi, and use up all your chakra right at the start, Kanajiro had plenty of chakra left. The only thing that held him back was his muscles becoming quite sore, due to prolonged exchanges with Hayashi. Normally, the battle would've been over already.
Around Kanajiro appeared four clones, all ready to attack. Despite not having any chakra in them, they started rushing towards Hayashi in order to mask the true Kanajiro's movements. They all attacked from either left, right or the front, forcing Hayashi to focus his energy on either left or right or the frontal attackers.
Meanwhile, Kanajiro rushed forwards behind two of the frontal attackers, and waited for Hayashi to disperse the two clones in front of him as Kanajiro would kick his knee upwards in to the air to gain upwards momentum, causing him to jump. Mid air, he'd attempt to kick Hayashi right in the face before following up with a punch to Hayashi's eye in case his kick hit.
Hayashi saw Kanajiro's clone technique and thought of it as a nifty trick, and as the four Kanajiro's all charged at Hayashi, he grinned and quickly dug into his tools on his left side, he drew two kunai that he lunged, not at the two clones in the front, nor at the ones on the side, but up into the air, where the real Kanajiro was. Hayashi scoffed.
''You're a hypocrite, first you tell me not to jump while attacking, and then you don't have the decency to throw a smoke bomb before using the smoke technique. You think I'm retarded?" Hayashi questioned his enemy, whom if he hadn't blocked the kunai would be at a severe advantage. As soon as he landed Hayasi rushed him to deliver a flury of jabs from both of his hands, trying to keep his eyes on his guard this time, unlike the last time, but his form was wearing thin, he could only hope to tire Kanajiro out physically, as the White Haired boy had plenty of chakra left.
Kanajiro grinned as Hayashi retorted with some kunai and a snide remark. He quickly pulled out a kunai as well, which was rare for Kanajiro, with which he quickly slashed the two kunai out of the way. He landed and quickly dodged to the left, throwing his kunai at Hayashi. Granted, the kunai wasn't thrown very well since throwing stuff wasn't Kanajiro's strong suit, just like defending wasn't. It'd easily be dodged or blocked.
Kanajiro jumped back again and decided that he'd have to end it right now, or live with the shame of being beaten by this Junnimaro idiot. There was a sizeable distance between the two now, and Kanajiro utilized this by pouring a shitload of chakra, saving only a little bit for the follow up technique, into his next move. He formed seals rapidly, inhaled and blew out again, which by now Hayashi would've been able to figure out was the Great Fireball Jutsu. But this time he covered the full distance to Hayashi, and even further, simply because of the amount of chakra being poured in. After this, Kanajiro would have no chakra left save the tiny bit which he used to form even more seals.
It was likely that Hayashi couldn't see what Kanajiro was doing now because of the flames, and the size of the technique was likely to ensure that Kanajiro could keep it this way. Kanajiro flicked his wrists and his fists caught fire again. He sprinted forwards and jumped into the flames, launching yet another flurry of fists towards Hayashi at an impressive speed, In total he sent four punches to Hayashi before jumping out of the flames, then switching positions on the outside of the ball of fire, and jumping back in, sending yet another three punches and a hard kick towards Hayashi.
Hayashi took a few seconds to catch his breath as Kanajiro was kneeding his chakra and making his seals. He concidered throwing an explosive tag on his enemy, but either it wouldn't work, or it would kill Kana, and as much as Hayashi wanted to win, he wasn't going to resort to murder, especially not on their first day. Second day, maybe.
Hayashi saw as Kanajiro breathed in to release the fire technique, and he quickly payed attention, for as soon as the fireball came towards him, Hayashi dashed to the side. He knew how to beat Kanajiro now, he thought to himself. As Kanajiro came running towards him, Hayashi got his guard up, he wasn't going to hit back, he was going to do what his father had taught him the best, stay mobile, move like a butterfly.
Hayashi tried his utmost to dodge the punches, the extra layer of fire making it quite difficult, but with a few burns he made it through, as Kanajiro gave him a little bit of breathing room, Hayashi realized one of his bangs were slightly on fire. He let out a chuckle as he spit on his right hand and put the fire out, and then Kanajiro attacked him again, Hayashi focusing on dodging, he was burnt on the shoulder, not badly, but enough to piss him off.
Then the kick came, Hayashi side-stepped, just in time so that Kanajiro missed him, he then quickly stroke the hand he had spit on previously in Kanajiro's face, taking a few steps back. He felt he was regaining the advantage in this fight, by all means, Kanajiro had expended his chakra, where as Hayashi had done nothing but work up a sweat in the last few minutes.
Kanajiro was upset that the fireball had missed it's goal and realised now that he had put all his chakra into that one technique. All he had left now was to sustain the fiery fists technique long enough to get to Hayashi. He estimated that he had about a minute left of chakra before his fiery fists would need to be deactivated, and after that it'd have to be pure taijutsu. Not that it mattered, Hayashi seemed to rely on taijutsu now as well, and would probably not be able to pull any more jutsu out of his ass.
Hayashi dodged his kick, and stroked his hand across Kanajiro's face. It was wet, somehow. He tried to quickly get away, but Kanajiro was quick enough to grab his hand with his right hand, pulling him back and sending his left palm onto Hayashi's elbow. If Hayashi didn't manage to dodge this palmstrike, he'd be either fighting with a broken arm or surrendering.
As soon as Kanajiro grabbed onto his right hand, by the wrist, Hayashi didn't fight it, but instead took a step forward, using his left hand to punch Kanajiro's left hand, that was going for Hayashi's elbow, and then quickly send an elbow to Kanajiro's face, going for the jaw that he had already weakened with his Jabs and uppercut earlier in the fight, Hayashi was going for a fracture, at best, but he wasn't sure he really had enough power left to actually break Kanajiro's jaw with his elbow. When Kanajiro would recooperate from Hayashi's hits, he would take a few steps back, to give some space between the two.
Kanajiro's palm got punched away, making Kanajiro flinch from the already hurting arm from the wires, after which Hayashi attempted to elbow strike Kanajiro's head, but after the punching away of his palm Kanajiro was paying close attention to that hand. He quickly mananged to roll his head down, ducking a bit so he could dodge the elbow. Kanajiro felt the elbow grazing over his hair, and he suddenly felt quite happy that he had managed to dodge this attack rather than go for his characteristical 'I'll tank that hit' approach.
This fight should've been finished earlier and Kanajiro was quite impressed by Hayashi's fighting abilities. But now it would end. The arm that was punched away earlier came back now, once again with a palmstrike to the still extended arm of Hayashi, since he never bothered to break the grip. Likely, Hayashi had counted on his elbow strike being the finisher, too. After the palmstrike would connect with the elbow, he'd move on with his palm, going for a a punch to the throat, after which he'd pull back his arm once again and let go of Hayashi's arm and punch him in the eye with his pulled back arm.
Hayashi saw how Kanajiro dodged his elbow, not what he had intended to happen, but it wasn't the worst thing in the world. The two were still locked together by their right arms, actually the best case scenario for Hayashi, Kanajiro was going straight for the elbow again, making him predictable.
Hayashi used his left hand to grab Kanajiro by the outside of the palm, his thumb effectively blocking Kanajiro's palm strike and locking him down, in the next instant. This means they had reached what is a deathlock, for both knew that if either of them let go to punch the other, their opponent would put them on the ground and knock them out.
"Yo. Kana.." Hayashi grinned between his teeth, trying to break Kanajiro's hold. "How about.. We call it a draw.." Kanajiro grinned at Hayashi, taking a moment to inspect the deadlock. ''I can keep going. I can headbutt you.'' he said, but both of them knew that they'd just end up headbutting eachother until the other got knocked out. ''Why are you here anyway, messing up my meeting with my sensei?''
"Oh yeah.. I guess in all of the excitement I forgot. I'm your teammate. Sensei sent me here to kick your ass. Guess she wanted us to beat each other up or something." Hayashi said, grinning. "And besides. I've already headbutted you once."
Kanajiro shook his head, thinking about what Ruri told him. ''That girl, Ruri..'' he said, probably leaving Hayashi wondering what the hell he meant with this. Both of them let eachother go with a push and looked at eachother with a big grin. It seemed they were both geniuses in their own ways.
