A Lesson from Home (Training)

[Hashigaki Kurokawa]

Like any other morning Kurokawa woke up to and early sunbeam warming her face. She quickly covered her eyes cause being blind does not protect your eyes from the sun. When she entered the kitchen the food was ready on the table as always. She would see her two guardians through the window. They were preparing something in the garden. It had something to do with kunais cause she could hear the well known clinging of metal. Also apparently they had put up some make shit walls. Four of them.

She went out into the garden once again feeling the warmth of the sun on her face. She but on her head accessory while asking to her guardians. "What are you doing with those boards stuck in the ground?"

"We are preparing a bit of training for you" the replied. "Come stand in the middle here"

Kurokawa signed, put her hair up into a knot as she usually did, and then proceeded to walk towards the planks. She stopped in the middle of the squard.
"Have you just made four corners of a house and not bothered with the rest of the walls or the roof? Or a room I should say cause it seems small." She asked.

One of her Guardians laughed a little before replying.
"We put the four planks in the ground for target practice. We will stand on either side and each have two boards to hit. Then we take turns throwing kunai at one of our targets. The Training for you is simply to intercept and block as many as you can detect"

"Eh wont I get hit then?" Kurokawa said nervously.

"Not unless you actively step in front of the shot you wont". Came the reply. "Here, you will need this kunai to deflect the incoming ones. We wouldn't want you do hurt your hands"

Kurokawa could sense the kunai coming from her right but still fumbled around with it when trying to catch it. She was clearly still nervous about todays training as it would be her first real practice in anything not related to mitigating her lack of vision or just using the right stance for the job. When she finally got a hold of it she held it up in front of her in a defensive manner like she had been taught to. She then took a deep breath.
"Okay re re ready when you are" She stuttered.

Everything went quiet. She tried to focus her energy on finding the position of her two guardians. She looked for the sound as well as the chakra but the latter proved at bit too hard for her at this point. Nevertheless she picked up on a slight inhale on her right and attempted to block the inbound kunai. Even though she could slightly sense it she could not react in time and she head the loud "thonk!" when it hit the board behind her. She didn't get much time to be frustrated as another kunai took flight from the left. It went right past her and into the board on the other side. So far she had hit nothing but she had quickly picked up on determining the direction they would come from. The third one came from behind and was accompanied by a flickering paper sound. A charm of sorts. She attempted to strike at the sound and heard the sound of paper getting cut before the kunai pierced the board in front of her. Now she knew she was not that far off. If she was just a little bit faster she would be able to stop the kunais even though they were thrown at full force. Every third kunai would have a piece of paper on a string trailing after it. After an hour of training she had still not deflected a single blade but she had upgraded from hitting paper to hitting string.

"I can't keep going. I need a break" She said.

She was winded by now. They needed to collect all the blades and put up new planks anyway so she got half an hour to herself before the training repeated. After another half hour of training she finally heard the first "Chink!". She had struck metal on this one. Just the ring at the end of the kunai but still it was enough to throw it off course and miss the board. By the end of the training session she was able to consistently hit the back ring and had even managed to fully deflect one kunai out of the countless that had passed her.

"Lets call that a day then" Her guardians said. "Practice makes perfect after all, and we can't expect consistent results on your first day."

"I need to go lie down I think" Kurokawa mumbled through her exhausting.
The proceeded to to stumble back into the house, up the stairs and straight into bed.

[WC: 822]
[MFT]

 

[Hashigaki Kurokawa]

After a day out in the Aventurine street Kurokawa was looking forward to relax a bit before dinner. This proved to be fruitful as the after dinner event turned out to be a home school training session and this time with the chance of injury.

The setup in the garden this time was a plank high enough off the ground that Kurokawa could not sense the the ground underneath and narrow enough that walking along it would require absolute concentration. she was given her basic equipment of five shurikens, five kunai, five smoke bombs and a strong line four meters in length. At first she wondered what she would need any of it for in a balance test but she knew that nothing was random. She was told that todays training was a bell catching and that she had to walk the plank to get the bell. She then heard a ring high above her, found the large wooden pole she was supposed to climb, grabbed on to a robe that was hanging from the pole and proceeded to attempt to climb to the top. She had very little control over her chakra and the pole was damp for some reason, smelled funny too. She knew that smell from somewhere but could not for the life of her remember where.

Getting to the top became easier about half way up as the dampness and the smell subsided and when she finally got to the top she could hear the bell ringing in front of her. She could vaguely sense the plank and proceeded to step out on it when she heard a match being lit. Suddenly she remembered where she knew that smell from. Lamp Oil. She would not be able to take her time with this cause she had about 3 minutes before the pole would crumble, so she immediately stepped again. She did not know exactly how far she had to go so she could not time her speed with the pole falling. She took out a kunai and the line, and bound them together. then she fastened the other end to her waist and swung the kunai around the plank once counter clockwise. Grabbing it when it came around she started running along the plank.

Of course running on a narrow plank is not an easy feat for a newbie, and she hadn't run for more than 5 seconds before she tripped and went over the right side. She threw the kunai with all her might in the other direction causing it to spin around the plank. She then grabbed hold of the rope to alleviate some of the strain her waist was about to endure. Her entire weight pulled on the line but it did not break, and instead just tightened around the plank and yanked on her belt and hands. She then proceeded to climb back up the rope and now she was close enough to the edge to sense where it was. She would have been able to walk along it with enough time to get over before the pole would burn through but taking the chance with running she now only had about 20 seconds to get over after she had untangled her line. She chanced it and started running again. Even though the bell sound still seemed far away she could sense the edge. She lost her balance again but instead of throwing the kunai counter clockwise around the plank like last time she threw it clockwise, untangling it and then jumped full force forwards. She could hear the pole crackling from the flame and sense the plank disappearing beneath her but all that mattered was reaching out with her hands trying to grab the ledge.

She just and barely got a hold of the edge and pulled herself up. The surface she was standing on was tilting to the right and there was a sound of stone tiles when she stepped. A bend roof. The ringing seemed to come from the other side. She started running towards the top of the roof thinking it would be easier to run on the spine of the roof than on the slanting sides. Little did she know that reaching the top would tricker the second part of the training. Now she found herself trying to dodge and deflect flying kunai that were aimed in front of her to slow her down. It was clear that one guardian was moving the bell at a set phase that she had to catch up to while the other was trying to slow her down. She had to stop them so she grabbed a smoke bomb and threw it in front of her. Being blind the smoke did nothing to impair her vision, so covering her mouth with her clothes was enough to tolerate any hindrance associated with it. Her guardian however now had no frame of reference as to where to shoot. In a real fight one with have bombarded the smoke with ranged attacks but thrown weapons are not infinite and this was training not execution so it forced the constant volley of knives to cease. Kurokawa used up the rest of her smoke bombs to reach the edge of the roof.

The bell sound was now very close. She used a few kunai to try and hit the bell but heard that they were deflected. It did however give her a good sense of the distance between her and the bell, so after jumping to the next roof top she unleashed all her shurikens in the hope that one of them would cut the string. She ran towards the sound while hearing the cling sounds of metal against metal. One, two, three, four. The last one must have been to far off mark. Then the sound of a bell dropping and hitting the flat roof they were now on. It seemed her guardian was only allowed to run at about 80% of Kurokawas speed and had to keep a maximum distance of some sort meaning that she had now caught up to her target. Switching from running to a sliding maneuver she avoided getting slowed by the last knives flying in front of her and was also able to slide under her target snatching the bell before it could be picked up.

Holding the bell in the air and panting like there was no tomorrow she stood there awaiting the verdict. How had she performed? She was met by 2 sets of clapping noises and some heartly "Well done"'s before she fell to her knees. She was spend. This kind of training right after a trip into the main street at tired her out enough to last for a week.

[MFT]
[WC: 1125]

 

[Hashigaki Kurokawa]

Now the time had come. Kurokawa had been waiting to get enough control over her chakra so that she could learn what element or elements she would have a natural flair for so that she could start working towards mastering them. Her guardians had prepared a special piece of paper. She had heard about it before. Pouring chakra into it would make it react according to the element she would be most suited to pursue. Wind would cut it in half, Water would dampen it, Lightning would crumble it, earth would have it turn into dirt and fall apart and fire would turn it into ash.

A piece was handed to her and she tried focusing. At first nothing happened. Then she felt something but smelled something else which confused her. She felt the dampness in the paper indicating that she was most suited for water, but soon after she felt the paper falling apart while she could smell it burning. She turned to her guardians in question and they told her that it seemed she had potential to go two ways with what her main element would be, and that she should work on making what ever she did not choose into her secondary element, She was told that with enough training she might be able to combine the elements into a new one and that her choice of main focus would determine the difference between white mist and black shadow.

"If I choose Mist I will be able to even the odds with my opponent and if I choose shadow I will be able to control them? I guess mist is a better fit for me then."

With that settled she started her Ninjutsu training with water element jutsu as her focus. Before that though she had to get the basics down so she started focusing on a more basic but very useful jutsu. The replacement technique. She focused for hours on end before she seemed to somewhat get a hang of it and now having this Ninjutsu in her repertoire she went on with breathing exercises and meditation. Slow deep breaths, in and out, in and out. Just like waves running up the beach then pulling back she kept her breath regular and slow, in and out. She tried to feel her chakra flowing, picturing it as vast river within her body. Always flowing, always changing, always getting stronger. She took a deep breath, but this time as she exhaled she used her chakra to condense the air making the water in it turn into a vapory mist. She felt how her chakra streamed out of her like a river emptying into the sea. She didn't lose much compared to her whole reserve but enough that it would not be repeatable that many times. Never the less the continued doing so until she was completely exhausted and out of chakra. That would be enough for today. She laid there on the grass for some time gathering strength and feeling her body slowly filling again like a reservoir. before getting up and walking inside to take a bath after a day if training

[MFT]
[WC: 525]

 

[Hashigaki Kurokawa]

Being blind Rina had no means of reading but from her guardians she had heard that there was a way for blind Shinobi to enhance their fingers with chakra. Unlike the techniques centered around the feet used for gripping onto something or staying on top of it like tree and waterwalking this was to enhance the sense of touch to the extreme. With it the possibility to slowly decypher what is written on a piece of paper would be possible. Way too slow to be used for combat but fast enough to be used when an ample amount of time is available.

She had praticed with her guardians before but that was with engraved writings and the focus was for her to learn the written language because if she could decypher the signs but had no frame of reference as to what they meant it would be pointless.

The task was pretty simple. Just say out loud what was written on a note. She started to pour chakra into her hands but quickly found that she was pouring to much too fast and that it was sort of widdening her sense of touch more than sharpening it. She already knew how to read the wind and preassure from others well enough to use it in combat but this required more delicacy.

She kept at it for hours, each try with less chakra output than the last until she got to a point where the output was right. Now she just had to mold it right as well. She could not keep using handseals as she would need the hands to read the paper. So far she had just adjusted but now she needed to actually remove her hands to make seals to mold the chakra.

She found out that this approach was ineffective for reading as the time she could hold the form of the chakra was too short to pratice with. Then she came up with the idea to make the seal and then only releasing one hand to touchthe paper. This time she had more success. She would still need full concentration and to make the initial seal with both hands but she could hold it now.

The message was readable so she said it out loud.

"I finally did it"

Her guardians had made the message so that she would announce success as she finished reading. She smiled at them both and decided to call it a day. She would need to pratice it but at least now she had a way.

[MFT]
[WC: 425]

 

[Hashigaki Kurokawa]

Kurokawa had felt more empowered lately. She had awakened her mothers legacy and was now no longer bothered by her lack of sight at all. She had gotten used to identifying people around her by ear and by smell, while discerning there location relied on a combination of vibrations from movements and sounds from everything from footsteps, over breathing, to whatever the person would collide with, like rain of leafs in the wind.

Although she felt stronger she did not have the techniques to match this feeling. Therefore she began practising her shooting. She found that sometimes when she went for a called shot to her dummies arms, and missed, the shot would bounce of in random directions. She use that to try and decide in what directing the bounce would occur. At first she had to walk a bit far to find her shurikens but as she got better at aiming and predicting the shots, they started coming back in her general direction. By the time she was satisfied with her ability to predict bounces, all her shurikens had two chances to hit their mark. One with a pretty sure-fire direct hit and one when the shot missed but bounced back towards the target hitting it in the back.

Afterwards she went on to upping her Taijutsu skills. She already had a usable three punch combo so rather than perfecting that she tried to get one for kicking specific. For inspiration she went to her guardians for help and ideas. They showed her a form of spinning three combo which had some advantages depending on how much the target was hit. They then set up a less stationary dummy that would bounce back slightly when hit and she started practising with that. At first she could not get enough spin to do more than one kick, but gradually as she poured more and more chakra into the attacks she got more and more power which she used for spinning rather than extra force.

After she was satisfied with the result she asked one of her guardians for a mock battle to test it out. She found that when a stronger opponent saw the attacks coming, the spinning kicks would not work, but her guardians did not know about her other acquisition so she threw a shuriken as if she was about to use her curve shot. It was dodged with ease but the bouncing return was anticipated late and made her guardian lose focus while turning around to block it. Kurokawa used that chance to move in and do her combo with two kicks landing before her guardian reacted and put some distance between them again. She bowed to to indicate that the fight was over and went to take a shower.

[MFT]
[Ooc. WC: 463]

 

[Hashigaki Kurokawa]

Now it was time for Kurokawa to hone her elemental offence skills. She had the time and the means to do so. Her Guardians had already gathered scrolls with techniques she could learn from so she had just grabbed one that looked useful. A Water Whip technique. by now molding chakra to perform water jutsu had become easier for her so she just followed the instructions her Guardian was ready aloud and in less that an hour of tries she stood there with a whip made solely of water.

Knowing its cutting properties, her guardians had set up a dummy to practice on rather than a sparring duel. Kurokawa swung the whip and cut of on of the arms from the dummy. Then she cut of the other and then the head. The whip was quite powerful but after using it for a while it also became clear that it had its drawbacks. It drained her chakra even when not used so she had to pick and choose when to use it.

"Lets do some basic training so that I can better control this new ability"

She sat down and started meditating, focusing her concentration inwards. She was slowly but surely widening the leylines that poured chakra through her body. Most of this expansion needed training and growth but from time to time excess training would build up unused potential which could then be unlocked through meditation.

After her meditation she stood up and summoned the whip once more. This time she found that she could hold it longer and had better control over it. She was satisfied with her progress and went inside to take a shower, giving a punching bag the old one, two, three on the way in. A good day of training and it was even over fast enough for her to have the afternoon off.

[MFT]
[WC: 310]
[Also requesting Water as my free Minor element for D-rank]