Intense beads of sweat flowed from the girl’s brow and down her neck as her arms swung the weighted wooden sword through a flawless series of motions. The blade swung down hard in a quick over-head slice followed almost immediately, and seamlessly, a horizontal strike. The hard wooden dummy snapped in half, the upper portion flying into the air in repeating somersaults until it landed against the sanded practice arena. Otami’s hands vibrated with pain from the repeated strikes of wood against wood as she panted staring down the wooden dummy like it was her most heated rival. Her mismatched eyes slowly closed as she breathed in deep and then unleashed the breath slowly. Almost immediately her fierce features began to take on a soft calm as her muscles returned to a relaxed state to hide back beneath the soft skin. With a simple brush of her hand across her stomach, the girl coated the area with chakra to transform the features away from the six-pack that had annoyingly developed over the period of training with her master.
The look and shape of muscular forms fascinated Otami. More than once she found herself crushing on boys who were well toned and physically strong, but on herself? As it turned out, she wasn’t a fan. Thankfully, not unlike her father, she had begun to take on chakra techniques that better suited the vain. Simple transformation techniques that could be held pretty much indefinitely, learning how to shift chakra into hair to keep it from frizzing out, and other such jutsu. Even in the middle of training she couldn’t help but feel a ping of self-consciousness and once she had endured her daily regiment the disguise of a softer girl came back on. Why she had gotten like this when her appearance had once never been much of a concern was up for debate. Some of it most likely due to Asuka’s doting housekeepers pushing feminine images on a otherwise honest tomboy. The rest of it was her sudden transformations in both mental and physical recently. The incident with the primates had continued to ever be a haunting moment in her mind that lived up there rent free.
Otami sighed a little at the jumble of chaos in her head and moved to hang the weapon back up on a rack sitting on the far wall. The Cypress Society event was coming up and her emotions on that weren’t great either. Yet a promise was a promise, and she would show to honor her sensei at the very least, but…it just didn’t feel like her. That bubbly innocent wolf-girl everyone knew. The Otami most people knew would have balked at such an idea, let alone trained hard enough to feel like she even had a remote chance in hell in competing. But, now a blood-thirst was awake, and it was transforming her choices for her sometimes. Fights with strangers she would have shyly brushed off became full confrontations, yelling matches with Asuka's maids...beating on a poor wooden dummy until it snapped in half. The stark difference in the person she had been not but a short while ago was glaring to her, and it was bothering the Ryuu on a level she didn’t know she could be bothered on. She needed a fight; She needed a hug. Most importantly - she needed someone to talk to.
Problem with that was everyone knew her as a different person, and opening up to just a stranger about these changes were a no go. Even her master stated it was a matter for her parents, not for him…but the only person even remotely close to that level of trust was gone; just like other important people in her life. Keni and Keiyaku had been impossible to get a hold of, and of everyone she knew those two would have understood her changes the best; especially the latter. However, their jobs as higher ranking shinobi over this last extent of time had really shown the girl the difference in their status as ninja; and possibly their status as people. “Out of her league” someone would say.
Flopping down on a bench she stared down at the pit as others carried on their training. The broken dummy largely went ignored and would be replaced eventually; not like she was the only one capable of cleaving a log in half with a stick. Reaching under the bench, the blond withdrew a pack with a bottle of mineral water within that cooled down the rising heat of her core as she tried to relax off the sword-muscle strain. Her hand still quivered slightly against the bottle as she sipped deep from the straw before setting it down. There felt like something was just beyond that quiver. A strength, a new technique, a hidden power…she wasn’t sure what, but it’s what kept her coming back.
That and the need to quell hitting something. Really annoying, that.
The look and shape of muscular forms fascinated Otami. More than once she found herself crushing on boys who were well toned and physically strong, but on herself? As it turned out, she wasn’t a fan. Thankfully, not unlike her father, she had begun to take on chakra techniques that better suited the vain. Simple transformation techniques that could be held pretty much indefinitely, learning how to shift chakra into hair to keep it from frizzing out, and other such jutsu. Even in the middle of training she couldn’t help but feel a ping of self-consciousness and once she had endured her daily regiment the disguise of a softer girl came back on. Why she had gotten like this when her appearance had once never been much of a concern was up for debate. Some of it most likely due to Asuka’s doting housekeepers pushing feminine images on a otherwise honest tomboy. The rest of it was her sudden transformations in both mental and physical recently. The incident with the primates had continued to ever be a haunting moment in her mind that lived up there rent free.
Otami sighed a little at the jumble of chaos in her head and moved to hang the weapon back up on a rack sitting on the far wall. The Cypress Society event was coming up and her emotions on that weren’t great either. Yet a promise was a promise, and she would show to honor her sensei at the very least, but…it just didn’t feel like her. That bubbly innocent wolf-girl everyone knew. The Otami most people knew would have balked at such an idea, let alone trained hard enough to feel like she even had a remote chance in hell in competing. But, now a blood-thirst was awake, and it was transforming her choices for her sometimes. Fights with strangers she would have shyly brushed off became full confrontations, yelling matches with Asuka's maids...beating on a poor wooden dummy until it snapped in half. The stark difference in the person she had been not but a short while ago was glaring to her, and it was bothering the Ryuu on a level she didn’t know she could be bothered on. She needed a fight; She needed a hug. Most importantly - she needed someone to talk to.
Problem with that was everyone knew her as a different person, and opening up to just a stranger about these changes were a no go. Even her master stated it was a matter for her parents, not for him…but the only person even remotely close to that level of trust was gone; just like other important people in her life. Keni and Keiyaku had been impossible to get a hold of, and of everyone she knew those two would have understood her changes the best; especially the latter. However, their jobs as higher ranking shinobi over this last extent of time had really shown the girl the difference in their status as ninja; and possibly their status as people. “Out of her league” someone would say.
Flopping down on a bench she stared down at the pit as others carried on their training. The broken dummy largely went ignored and would be replaced eventually; not like she was the only one capable of cleaving a log in half with a stick. Reaching under the bench, the blond withdrew a pack with a bottle of mineral water within that cooled down the rising heat of her core as she tried to relax off the sword-muscle strain. Her hand still quivered slightly against the bottle as she sipped deep from the straw before setting it down. There felt like something was just beyond that quiver. A strength, a new technique, a hidden power…she wasn’t sure what, but it’s what kept her coming back.
That and the need to quell hitting something. Really annoying, that.
