Two feints...what in the...
Ikko barely had time to properly process that Shieo just wasn't where he was supposed to be before a concussive impact struck the boy clear in the back. He felt his balance and by extension the ground leave him as he was thrown away from the spot. He could tell by the fact that he was both alive and not especially crippled that Shieo wasn't intending to hurt him, at least not seriously, and it felt like he barely even made contact. That was still enough to send the partially airborne Ikko tumbling through the air...annoyed. Gritting his teeth, the blow back from Shieo's strike digging the boy's staff into his back, Ikko released the weapon and wrenched his hands forward. Not bothering to keep up the facade of needing hand signs, he threw his hands toward the ground, his eyes gleaming azure once more as a slick sheet of ice formed along the ground beneath him, shaping in to a pathway for him toward the tree. Ikko landed on his knees and, not without a bit of pain, slid along his makeshift icy skating rink, more and more ice forming before him as he moved until he reach the tree, the path snaking up the trunk as he moved. Using his now upward momentum, Ikko deftly pushed off the ice with his hands, dropping him down beside the tree and fully upright. It looked way more graceful than it had any right to.
There wasn't any showmanship to it though. No grandiose posturing, no theatrical flair, Ikko just dusted himself off and moved toward his discarded weapon as Shieo spoke to him. This out of character behavior continued as Ikko hefted his weapon up onto his shoulder and spoke.
"Common sense, mostly. The point of this is to learn. I'm not going to beat you even if I use the tactic I specialize in, wouldn't learn much other than that I wouldn't beat you. Much rather fight with what I'm not good at it to get better at it against someone way better than me. More room to improve there."
It was analytical, that wasn't out of character, Ikko was actually a considerably more thoughtful boy than one would imagine from watching him. It was even a bit petty, that wasn't out of character. Ikko wasn't immune to playfully holding grudges for perceived slights. What was out of character was that it wasn't playful at all. There wasn't much joy or energy in his voice, it was pure bitterness that radiated from Ikko. Of course, that wasn't the full answer. When he was sliding around that sheen of ice, he saw his reflection for the briefest moment, he saw that glow in his eyes. That scared him. He wasn't really sure what would happen. Granted, Shieo was making a very strong case for why Ikko shouldn't care what happened. Both because he was probably strong enough to handle it...and because Ikko wouldn't really mind ripping his head off.
Ikko wasn't as well informed as Shieo suspected of him. Nothing he had done so far was off of information, it was just steady intuition. Unfortunately, that didn't really help him too too much here. Not as he was right now at the very least. If he was in his right frame of mind, maybe he'd have realized there was no way Suika and Eishi would just materialize into thin air in front of him. That made zero sense. He'd know he was in a genjutsu. But his mind was flashing back to his own eyes in the reflection of his ice, his glowing azure eyes...eyes that materialized behind the pair of them, obscuring Shieo from view. Not much scared Ikko, not because he was tough per say, just more because self-preservation just never ranked too high on his to do list. Ikko was scared now. Tendrils of frozen air snaked up and down the apparitions of Suika and Eishi, the color faded from their eyes, their bodies turned rigid, Ikko knew they were dead, light blotted out down to their very core, blotted by him.
He barely moved in time. It was subtle, almost invisible, but a tendril of faint blue struck through the air. Ikko dropped and rolled as the jet of frigid air shot over head and crashed into the tree behind him, Ikko's quick look over his shoulder saw the tree flash frozen, petrified in place with a shimmering glean in the sunlight to his eyes, fear gripping him once again, fear and something else.
The air temperature around Ikko dropped precipitously crashing down to far below freezing as the boy's body began, physically, changing. Ikko's hair began changing colors, streaks of white coursing through his blue locks as his eyes, very noticeably now, glowed a brilliantly bright blue as veins of blue light danced across his skin, raw chakra pouring through his body as the boy's jaw physically began to change. Large incisors jutted out, fangs forming as his jaw extended forward. A cry of pain, fear, and anger erupted from the boys growing maw as tendrils of frigid air, much like what had come from the Genjutsu's creation, shot forward toward the monster before him, but it didn't really seemed aimed, more akin to throwing a drunken haymaker in a bar than an actual coordinated attack, as more explosions of frigid power shot from Ikko toward the monster and, should it move, toward Shieo.
WC: 913
TWC: 2213
PC: 4/5