V-System

V-Skill

Tenrai

Tenrai (Charged)Hold

Tenrai: Ibuki’s V-Skill palm strike is executed by either tapping or holding . She thrusts her palm out with an energy blast that knocks down on hit. Tenrai has a projectile hitbox that extends a tremendous distance in front of Ibuki’s vulnerable palm–roughly the area the blue energy flame licks across in front of her palm. Quick Tenrai hits as a projectile 30 percent of the screen from where Ibuki starts (with the leading 10 percent being invincible), and charged Tenrai extends this reach to 35 percent (with the leading 15 percent invincible).

Ibuki’s Kunai are a useful ranged tool, but they don’t help her in fireball fights. Regular Kunai lose to other projectiles outright, and EX Kunai pass through other projectiles like they aren’t there, maybe striking the enemy but without doing anything to protect Ibuki. Tenrai allows her to easily bat aside incoming single-hit projectile wars, briefly stalemating the enemy’s ranged game without taking risks or giving up ground. (Beware sharp challengers loaded with EX gauge for a quick long-range EX move or Critical Art though, since they may be trying to bait a brief over-commitment to swatting their fireballs.) And thanks to its reach and invulnerable energy blast hitbox, it’s also one of Ibuki’s best far-reaching pokes. Whether instant-release or charged, Tenrai leaves Ibuki at a frame disadvantage if guarded, but this is no problem aiming to hit with the invincible tip.

When using charged Tenrai, be sure to release immediately and cleanly at the end. If careless with the release, especially of the button, it’s easy to erroneously follow charged Tenrai with MP Kunai Ikkinage, inadvertently discharging all reserve Kunai as a blade wall. This might even hit them on accident, but leaves Ibuki wide-open to immediate jump-in combos right after Tenrai, among other things, and is just kind of sloppy.

V-Reversal

Hanagasumi during blockstun

Hanagasumi: During Ibuki’s unique V-Reversal, she vanishes in a momentary ninja escape maneuver. She drops a 12-frame log projectile wherever the V-Reversal was activated as she teleports right next to the opponent, no matter how far away they are. That means this can conceivably be used to achieve close-range from full-screen after blocking a projectile. This isn’t wise in practice of course since the opponent will have long since recovered from throwing their fireball, making Ibuki a sitting duck upon landing from the V-Reversal teleport. But at close to mid range, canceling blockstun with a V-Reversal as early in the enemy’s attack as possible, situations can emerge where Ibuki’s log is dropped too far to hit them, but she lands in time to go for a close-range hit-check.

V-Trigger

Rokushaku Horokudama (along with either neutral or or )

Rokushaku Horokudama: Ibuki’s V-Trigger requires three stocks of V-Gauge. On activation, she throws an old-fashioned ninja bomb half a screen away. This bomb has a variable fuse. The fuse length is determined by the direction held on activation–neutral (no input) results in 1.5 second fuse, results in a 3.5 second fuse, and results in a 5.5 second fuse. Immediately upon activating V-Trigger and throwing the first bomb, a 33-second V-Timer begins ticking down. During this time, Ibuki still has one bomb left to throw. The second bomb won’t provide the same benefit of freezing the screen and allowing for unique link combos, but it follows the same timer rules.

While a bomb is onscreen with its fuse burning down, both Ibuki and her challenger can knock the bomb around by hitting it with attacks. The bomb itself is harmless until it explodes. The explosion, on hit, will launch the opponent into a jugglable state. The explosion can even hit floored opponents, if they fail to quick recover from knockdowns.

In some ways, Rokushaku Horokudama is like R. Mika’s V-Trigger with Nadeshiko. The opponent knows that there’s a threat independent of Ibuki on the way (the inevitable explosion), and the timing/vector of that threat is uncertain. Ibuki’s V-Trigger bombs do give a subtle visual cue via the fuse length–longer-timer bombs have longer fuses. This can be hard to eyeball in the heat of battle, though, and Ibuki can choose to manually detonate any bomb by hitting it with EX Kunai.

In hit-checks against an opponent on their feet, a bomb can usually be connected for a launch by canceling with (neutral input, for the shortest-fuse bomb) then linking crouching . And, at the cost of a Kunai and a stock of EX gauge, any timer of bomb can be forced to detonate and launch in these hit-checks by linking post-screen-freeze with standing L EX Kunai.

The initial bomb throw can also be used to enable stylish juggle links. For example, Ibuki will be in position to juggle a floating enemy with LP or MP Kunai after either landing almost-full-screen H EX Kunai into immediate MK Kasumigake, or 60 percent screen distance M EX Kunai into immediate LK Kasumigake. The EX Kunai explosion pops them up, which is why Ibuki has time to command dash in and still juggle another Kunai toss. This regular Kunai juggle against the floating enemy can be V-Trigger-canceled into a bomb throw. After the screen freeze, throwing an IMMEDIATE M EX Kunai will strike the still-floating foe and also catch the bomb and detonate it in midair, relaunching them again!

The second bomb won’t benefit from screen-freeze links, but still helps provide coverage and mix-ups to Ibuki. Maybe the most basic is to throw a bomb with a long fuse then just dash in and throw the enemy. R. Mika gets away with this kind of thing immediately after calling Nadeshiko, too. Defenders are so worried about looking out for the “assist” and for incoming hit-checks that they’ll often fail to look out for immediate throws. As a bonus for Ibuki that R. Mika can’t claim, there’s time to throw a long-fuse bomb (), dash in for an instant throw, then have the opponent get back up with the bomb still ticking away. To be truly annoying, just throw them again sometimes.

And that’s without getting into other mix-up possibilities with a bomb onscreen and near the opponent, about to go off. By mixing up between crouching , MK Sazan slide, and , Ibuki can go high or low with real teeth on the end of these pokes if the bomb explosion links right afterward. Ditto dashing straight through an opponent with MK Kasumigake right as the bomb detonates–depending on where Ibuki is, it may or may not be a ground cross-up, perhaps tricking their blocking instincts. Similarly, attempts to fly overhead with tricky downward-aimed MK Kunai Ikkinage are much stronger with a bomb about to blow. (Thinking of ways to exploit this will come naturally to fans of “Versus” series games, with their left/right assist gimmicks.)

After an opponent is launched by a bomb explosion, they can be juggled most simply (and painfully) with EX Raida if close enough. If the trajectory is right, Kasumigake into Aoji (jumping ) hits twice in this situation and spikes them back to the ground. The upward-traveling hitbox of Kazekiri tacks on a light-damage juggle ender hit that leaves Ibuki in fantastic okizeme positioning. And, depending on spacing and resources on hand, juggling with Kunai or EX Kunai is feasible; from pretty much any juggle, Kunai Ikkinage variants can fully juggle, charge depending.

Follow-Up Rokushaku Horokudama (along with either neutral or or )