Isayama Takayuki - Sound Chuunin
The sound of the crowd did little to bring Takayuki out of the malaise which had surrounded the apathetic youth's mood since arriving at the field of his Jounin Examination. The Otokage was not physically present for the exam... but still somehow Takayuki could feel the Grand Master's eyes on him and he hated it. He didn't hate the Grand Master specifically but it was hard to be a student of the great Kageoni without hating him just a little bit. The others had a great deal riding on the exam with their promotions and the honor of their Masters on the line but at least Okitsugu and Mina didn't have their Master with them. But even that wasn't the reason that Takayuki was in a bad mood as he arrived on the field.
Truly it was because he hated fighting.
Not because he wasn't good at it. But for... other reasons. He preferred to save his strength for when it was needed to obliterate a foe and hated demonstrations like these which were largely pointless ego contests. Mercifully the Otokage had given Takayuki some special instructions for this exercise... he'd been told to hold back. And that was good news to Taka. The exam would be painful enough simply impressing the judges. If he did everything he could he would almost certainly hospitalize or even kill himself.
Walking up to the training dummy he was instructed to battle, Takayuki bit his thumb and drew a strange symbol on the dummy in his own blood before taking one or two calculated steps backwards. Taking a deep breath, he conducted a few handseals but then stopped as if remembering something important.
"Hey... can you hold this?" He called over to the announcer as he slipped his jacket off and held it out with a faked smile on his face and an emphatic nod. "I'd really like to not wreck it in the exam."
If the announcer came over and took his coat, Taka would spring on his heels for a moment before resuming his strange hand motions. If not then he would simply shake his head before heading over to the sideline and tossing it over a bench and then returning to his original place within a few strides of the training dummy. With a few more seals the air crackled and filled with the smell of ozone as a massive thunderstorm began to grow in the sky overhead, rumbling and crackling with power.
The thunderstorm was always the worst part.
