In the Nara Forrest (Training)

A snore would be heard in the room as a dream would be going on inside a mind of a young boy. Drake was reading an interesting part of a book; “It’s basically the walking dead, a zombie if you would call him. Unlike the other skeletons that can be summoned through the old ancient ways of resurrecting, this is an actual animated corpse with flesh and muscle and everything still on it. Therefore, its more than simply a walking bag of bones, and is much more capable and does not need to be controlled through puppetry like the normal skeletons. It is much more than just a zombie however, or rather, it’s more of an amplified zombie with its abilities increased in order to make it more deadly. The first of this is the classic idea that zombies, since they are walking dead, cannot die again. This is partially true for this particular zombie. It indeed cannot die by conventional means, as in, even if its limbs were torn off, its head disconnected, and a hole blown in its stomach, it would still be alive. Albeit, it wouldn’t be of any use, it would still be alive nonetheless. However, even though the lord cannot regenerate itself, with the help of Drake, it has the ability to reattach limbs/replace body parts. The only thing possible to actually kill the lord is a large amount of fire, causing its skin to melt off and revert it into a normal skeleton. From there, it can be destroyed like any normal skeleton used in Necromancy.

Like any normal zombie, the lord is highly infectious. That is, it has the ability to infect any living creature with an infection or virus if it were able to bite said creature. This virus itself isnt actually as gruesome as it seems to be in myths, as a single bite from this creature will not cause a healthy human to die, and come back to life as another zombie. The actual effect is similar, but not exact. The virus injected into an enemy via the lord's bite will be similar to the jutsu known as 'Lifeless Plague' which they themself himself uses. The area of contact will begin to rot from the inside out, but at an extremely fast rate. The virus will also travel through the bloodstream and cause mild cellular damage to any tissues/organs/etc the blood comes into contact with. IF an enemy were to die while the virus were still in the body, they will in fact be risen as a zombie. However they will not be as powerful as the lord, in fact, all they will basically be is the equivilent of a regular skeleton, only with flesh. The virus alone though, is not enough to kill someone, unless they were bitten in the chest, of course. And yes, the lord has a tendancy to eat people.

Even though the lord is a creature brought into existence by the devil himself, it does have a brain and can think for itself. While this may be, its intellect only goes as far as battle plans, and will always keep its plan of action within Drake's orders. With this, comes its ability to summon skeletons of its own using the unholy power that keeps it alive, and using it to raise the dead itself. These skeletons are different than the ones summoned by Drake however. First of all, they can be easily distinguished by color, as instead of being pure white, they are actually blood red. They also stand slightly taller than normal skeletons, and are a little bulkier. In addition to that, these skeletons are easier to break apart, as in, they are not as solid as concrete. They also take a few extra seconds to reassemble once destroyed. However, they cannot be destroyed by piercing their skull, and have the ability to unattached and reattach their own limbs. They also hit slightly harder than normal skeletons, but are on the other hand slightly slower. The lord may only have five of these skeletons out on the field at one time, and cannot usually function as well with more than two. It can also only use up to ten of them in total in a single battle. While the lord is not able to regenerate or reattach pieces of its own body once they have been removed from his body, or just completely obliterated, it does have the ability to get up and fight again. It will do this by sacrificing a portion of its private army of red skeletons. What it will do is actually quite simple. If the lord is missing an arm, it will simply dettach an arm from one of his skeletons, and attach it to himself. The intention of this is basically just so that it can get back up and fight even if limbs or otherwise were removed from its body. If both of its legs were blown away for example, it would have the ability to get up and fight again instead of uselessly crawling on the ground. The downside to this however is that limbs it replaces are only as good as the skeletons themselves. Therefore, those body parts can only move as fast and hit as hard as the skeletons themselves, which is actually quite a considerable drop. As anyone could imagine, the lord does indeed have immense strength, which is really the main reason, coupled with its speed, it’s such a dangerous force. Were it not for its speed and strength, the other aspects of it would basically be useless, as they wouldnt work anyway. As for its strength itself, the lord has the power of the unholy and death on its side, and is very strong indeed. Most of its tactics include using its solid and sharp claws on the ends of its fingers to dig and rip out the flesh of any enemy, tearing through flesh, muscle, tissue, anything as if it were digging through dirt. It has the strength to back this up, which is why letting the monster get close is not a recommended idea. Aside from that though, it actually has very good punching strength, and when used at a full capacity, could punch straight through someone’s chest. Such an act would require all of its force directed in one location, but nonetheless it is possible for him to do. It has the strength to pick up and hurl boulders as well, and can even pick up giant mounds of loose dirt out of the ground and throw it. Even though it can do this, it cant exactly do it quickly. Basically, if this thing gets a club in his hands, duck in cover or your heads going to fly.

As a contradiction to most people's thoughts when thinking of zombies, the lord is NOT as slow as a slug, and does not moan for brains when it walks. To the contrary, it is actually quite fast due to the unholy force that drives it to existence in the first place. It is actually as fast as it looks, perhaps even faster depending on how well you can estimate an opponent. Its speed rivals that of Drake's, which is saying something indeed, being able to move to up to sonic speed with entire concentration. When actually attacking an opponent, it has to sacrifice some of its strength to be able to attack quickly. For this reason its actual speed depends on how much strength it decides to put into its attacks, but has the ability to move its arms and legs so fast anything but an Uchiha, or someone with a similar Doujutsu, would be unable to track its movements. The sacrifice of this would be that the attacks had little bite at all. So, now it was time to wrap up his little expedition with the zombies and head on home. But first, the 'super zombie' He summoned the rest of the skeletons out of the ground and had them stand up in attention in rows. He used what was now the first large chunk of his chakra and combined all of these skeletons into one, extracting the undeath essences from 99, and placing them all on one. What he got was something he was very proud of the moment he saw it. It looked like the rest of these zombies, a little, but there were differences. First of all he seemed to just radiat power and strength, a very intimidating part indeed, something he was glad to notice. On top of that though, he looked more muscular as well. He also noticed something that pleased him. On the upper and lower parts of his body, leaving some of his waist bare, he worse chainmail armor. He knew about chainmail vaugely, but did know enough to realize that with armor like that, no conventional weapon would have any slicing effect on his body if they made contact with either of those parts. He then began to immediatly test out the zombie, much the way he had the first zombie he saw today.

He started by pouring every last ounce of his strenght into one punch directed at the very center of the zombies chest, to test its defense. His hand simply bounced off of the chest much like it did with the other zombie, when he attacked it with only 40% of his power. But this thing, this monster, took the blow with all of his strength and just deflected it. Drake began cackling madly as he thought of the possibilities of this giant. From there he began testing other things, like the things strength and speed, becoming very happy with what he found, testing its recovering abilities, and discovered that any parts severed from the zombies body could be replaced with Drakes help. He was also surprised to find what the zombie could do when he decided to spar it for fun. Partway into the fight, Drake was able to have severed the things arm, when all of a sudden a red skeleton was summoned out of the ground, an arm taken off of it, and placed onto the zombie's missing arm slot. He was amazed at this, especially when he was being attacked by up to 5 red skeletons at the same time, as well as the zombie. It was in that moment that Drake promtply named the beast, The Zombie Lord.

Drake let out a deep breath, feeling good about all the progress he had made today. He was ready to head back now, and turned around to face the direction of the forest, where Emma was waiting for him. The sunset was painting the sky different colors, and it was indeed time to go back. He thought idly with an actual SMILE, a faint one, but one nontheless, that Emma would probably be happy to see him like this. She felt the same way about killing as he did pretty much, and usually when he was out this late, it was because he was killing things to crush his urges. He figured that she would be happy to see him so happy, and not caked in blood. He thought about this right as he was about to cause the Zombie Lord to explode, when he thought of something. These zombies were very powerful...but they had one great weakness: fire. He needed to come up with something that would protect them from fire, so that they would be almost invincinble. He came up with a great idea, a jutsu that could purge any harmful effects from any of his minions in one stroke, cuasing them to be free of fire, or anything else someone could come up with to cause them to deteriorate. He made a fire as quickly as he could, and simply threw some of the fire onto the Zombie lord, and watched it start to melt. He focused the unholy undeath essence that he controlled using his Amatsugan, and glided it across the Zombie Lords body, cleaving the fire off of it with ease. This was another one of those instances where he would have grinned, but he still could not. Instead, he turned around, causing the Zombie Lord to explode using Lifeless Explosion, and began walking back towards the campground where Emma waited for him.

If the expression were in the least bit possible for Drake to achieve, he would be grinning, quite deviously, from ear to ear. But he could not, so his face remained in the same, straight, indifferent look it always had. He had obtained what he thought he would not be able to do, and for that he was quite happy. But he wondered...what he was looking at now was a zombie, and not an actual skeleton...did it have some of the same features as the skeletons had? He was going to find out, and perhaps get off of his butt to do it. He did just that to. He started walking forwards into the light of the plain, squinting at the sudden onslaught of light that shot down at him, and stopped in front of the zombie, examining it. After a few moments of his evaluation, Drake took his hand, pulled it behind him, and punched the zombie in the chest with some of his strength. Not all of it, but about 40%, which was enough to break through a piece of wood, and smash a bone directly under it with some difficulty. His fist simply thunked onto the chest of the skeleton, bouncing off almost. The zombie looked at him with a questioning look as if wondering what he was doing. Drake nodded in approval at the density of the zombie, but he still had other questions. He went into a back kick, throwing all of his strength into it, every last once, and his foot pounded through the zombie's chest, creating a hole as his foot stuck out from the other side. He yanked his foot out and looked at the zombie, wondering what would happen. The hole in his chest didnt heal, just remained there like a hollow signature. But the zombie still looked at him curiously, it was obviously still alive. He commanded the zombie to punch him with half of its strength. It did so, pulling back its arm and punching him in the chest with enough force to push him back and cause him to cough slightly. Of course, his bones hadnt been modified, so they had the same density as any normal persons. At full strength, the zombie probably had enough power to perhaps crack a few bones in someones chest, if it hit directly, he imagined.

He had just a few more questions. He walked back up to the zombie that was still standing there like a soldier awaiting orders. He extended a sharp bone sword out of his shoulder, and made a slash at the zombies neck with some force. The head slid off nice and smooth, and onto the ground. He commanded the zombie to move, make some kind of action. The zombies head rolled on the ground to look up at him, as the zombies body picked Drake up by the neck with its hands, lifting him up in the air. Drake then made a slash at the arm that held him, slicing it off, and allow him to fall to the ground. The arm was still hanging tight onto his neck, and it even began to constrict around his throat as if it was still attached to the body. He gasped in mild surprised as he yanked the hand off of his neck, and ducked just in time to dodge another swing that came from the zombies other hand, the one that was still attached to it. He commanded the zombie to stop now, having all the information he needed. Obviously, this zombie could not be shattered by punching through its chest, like skeletons, and it was harder to damage. It could also function even without a head, or arms, and a giant hole in its chest. But obviously...it couldnt be repaired once anything was dislodge from its body. He was pleasantly pleased with the results of this zombie creation he had made.

He still had some questions though. One of which was, could he create one of these zombies in the ground, and could he use some of the jutsu he could use on skeletons on these zombies? He would answer one immediatly, as he stood back to the side, enough distance so that an exploding kunai would not hurt him if it exploded from the currently summoned zombies position, and used the Lifeless Explosion jutsu on the zombie corpse. Once again, he would have grinned at the results he had seen, for the zombie corpse did in face explode, parts of its body flying everywhere. His boredom had now just been officially eradicated. Now it was time to answer another question. He turned to his right, and focused on a point in the ground, trying the process of creating the last zombie, but on two skeletons in the ground. He did so successfully, and actually rather quickly considering these things were underground and out of sight, and watched the zombie quickly pop out of the ground in front of him. He grinned, and noticed something interesting. He had used little to no chakra in creating this zombie, as the work was done mostly by the undeath essence itself, and all he had to do was use his Amatsugan, which required little to no chakra itself, to extract the undeath essence from one and place it on another. He was very happy indeed at this.

He spent the next couple of hours playing around with his new zombie invention, mostly testing out if they could use the same jutsu as the skeletons. He was again pleased to find that they could. Along with Lifeless Explosion, he could combine a number of zombies into the 'Lifeless Stronghold' jutsu to protect him from incoming attacks. But the best part of this jutsu was the fact that since there was now skin on the bones of these skeletons, there were NO holes, and he was completely protected. He also found out that these zombies were very resistant to thunder, water, and earth. But they were partially vulnerable to wind, do to its cutting property, and extremely vulnerable to fire, which caused the skin to melt off of them, reverting them back into regular skeletons, weakened skeletons at that. But that didnt matter, he was happy with what he had. He wasnt ready to attempt the lifeless giant with these zombies, as he figured THAT could wait. Now that he had discovered that these zombies could do everythign a skeleton could, only more effecitively, he figured that now was a good time to come up with a zombie only jutsu, even if just one.

One would have to do for now, because it was starting to get late honestly, and if he was out for much longer, he would start to worry Emma, which was the last thing he wanted to do. He cared about that woman more than he cared about his fantastic findings, so therefor he could not allow himself to disappoint or worry her. But, he still had some time, so therefor he would utilize that time. The first thing that came into his mind for a new jutsu, was a better version of the Lifeless Explosion jutsu. Sure, that jutsu was fine, but he wanted something...with a little more bang, something that did a little more damage. He also wanted something more subtle. Afterall, if a skeleton comes charging at you, whether or not you know its gonna explode when it reaches you, YOUR GONNA GET OUTTA THE WAY! Therefor, he needed a jutsu that was a little...stealthier, something that an enemy wouldnt see coming. What he came up with was brilliant he thought. He would cause his zombies to split apart into a number of pieces, since they could actually do that, and then cause those individual chunks to explode at the same time. This way, he covered a larger area, thus doing more spread out damage, and making ith arder for an enemy to escape from. As for the sublty...he would form a zombie in the ground, and then launch it out of the ground right in front of an enemies face when they least expected it, much like a landmine. He tried this out, forming another zombie in the ground. He commanded the zombie to launch himself out of the ground, not pop out like they usually did, but actually launch itself so that it would go into the air when it came out. From there, he simply commanded the zombie to let itself fall apart into chunks, and then detonated them much the same way he did with Lifeless Explosion. He was again, extremely happy with the results he recieved.

What next...what next? Was there anything left, the Kisuke wondered? It seemed as though he had put in a good lot today. But, he still felt like something was missing, like there was something else he could exploit. Another zombie jutsu maybe? No, that wasnt it, he was good with just the one he had now, he could come up with more later. He thought and pondered on possibilities endless, it seemed, thinking of something to exploit. In truth it was actually a funny sight. Drake was standing in the middle of the plain, as he had moved quite a ways away from the actual forest by now, keeping his head bowed and placing a hand on his chin while he stood and thought. In front of him was about 20 zombies or more just standing there staring at him. And then he snapped his fingers, coming up with a brilliant idea. His idea however had no use for already created zombies, so therefor, at the same time he snapped his fingers, he initated the jutsu he now liked to call 'Zombie Chunks' and watched with amusement as all of the zombies crumbled into pieces, and then exploded. He couldnt grin however, not quite yet, but he would have if he could. His new plan was something like the first thing he came up with, when he was thinking of making a 'super skeleton'. He would make something of a 'super zombie'. He would do this by combining not two skeletons, but up to one hundred of them. It was actually rather fitting, because he had about 100 skeletons left in the ground, so he would be able to use them all up and walk away feeling good about himself, more or less.

If there was ever a time when boredom clung to the soul of one of the last remaining Kisuke of the world, clutching his soul and simply sapping the entertainment out of everything, it was now. But, did that even make sense? Was Drake even the type of person that could feel entertainment anymore? The answer was, surprisingly, yes. As a matter of fact, the man could feel entertainment indeed, as well as boredom. He just couldnt show it, at least not with facial features, because in truth he always looked bored. The only way to really tell was to observe his actions. If he just wandered around whatever campsite he and Emma had set up in whatever part of the world, looking like he had no real aim, then he was probably bored. But if he was doing something directly, or paying attention to something, and nothing else, then chances are he was probably entertained, or at least occupied with something.

But now was a time when he was truly and actually bored, but one probably couldnt tell because he looked to be focusing on something directly with all his attention. He was, actually, but what he was watching started to bore him greatly. To be completely specific, Drake was staring out into an open plain, he himself being hidden in the shadows under a tree at the edge of this plain where a forest began and the plain ended. The sun was shining brightly outside, as it was right in the middle of the day, not exactly to his preference, but nothing that really made a difference either. But thats still not precisely what he was looking at, for in truth, even though he was simply sitting there and staring, he was actually training, in a way. Out in the open plain, on the surface, were two skeletons he had summoned, and they were fighting eachother to the death, if that even made sense. Underneath these two skeletons was an entire graveyard, filled with up to 198 other skeletons just waiting to be used. These skeletons were not simply found here, of course not, as Drake had to summon them. How was he training exactly? A good question to the uninformed. Even though he simply sat and watched, he was actually watching over his skeletons as they fought, coming up with new tactics and/or jutsu for his skeletons to use in necromancy. Basically, he was tinkering.

So far his attempts to come up with anything new were in total vain, as he had come up with nothing, which was the cause of his boredom. He had watched these same two skeletons fight eachother for the past hour. Neither of them had made a killing blow, and neither of them had come up with any new tactics. Regardless, it was entertaining at first, because even in his norm Drake couldnt help but enjoy a small amount of combat between two people other than himself. But by now it was old and boring, and he had had enough. A deep sigh escaped from him as the two skeletons out in the plain in front of him both exploded at the same time, a result of his Lifeless Explosion jutsu, easily dispatching the two of them without any hinderence. He really was coming up empty these days, unable to think of anything new, even for himself. He had been the same for quite awhile now, and it was annoying. He pinched his nose in aggrivation to himself as he scolded himself for thinking in such a way. What did that matter? Wasnt he strong enough? Sure there were people more powerful than him out there, but he didnt care about that. As long as he was strong enough to protect Emma, and kill off any Kisuke he found along the way, it didnt matter right? So why was he so concerned?

Who knew. In truth even Drake couldnt read his own mind sometimes, because more often than not, part of it would go a completely different direction that he wanted to. He slung himself backwards so that he layed down on his back, and looked up at the sky through whatever holes the leaves in the trees above provided him. He stared for a nice long while before he sat up with an idea in his mind. "Maybe what I need is something...new, something that doesnt involve skeletons..." he said aloud, thinking on this a little more. The question here was, what? What else was there in death besides skeletons that could be used in necromancy? He thought about it for awhile, and the idea came to him. "Corpses of course..." he said aloud once more, but didnt sound to reassured. The problem here was he didnt know how to summon corpses with actual flesh and muscle on their bones. The scroll Kaien had given him only included normal skeletons. He sighed in defeat and thought that the best he was going to get was maybe a super skeleton. That was an easy one, though he was surprised he hadnt thought about it before. He had learned all about the undeath essence that was placed upon the corpses from his Amatsugan to give them mobility, and he knew what he should do was combine two skeletons into one that was bigger, and stronger. He would do this by taking two skeletons, removing the essence from one, destroying it in the process, and place it over the other one. Hopefully this would give it more strength and speed.

He jumped up onto both feet by swinging his body off of the ground, and looked at the plain where all the skeleton corpses were at with a newfound determination in his eye, the boredom gone from them. What he had come up with wasnt as exciting as he hoped it would be, but it was worth trying at least. He summoned two skeletons out of the ground to stand directly next to eachother, facing him with the look of order on their hollow faces. He looked at one, and quickly extracted the undeath essence and watched it crumble into a pile of dust on the ground. He snorted through his nose, a truly hollow gesture as in reality it showed no sign of humor at all, as if he was just breathing loudly. He quickly combined the undeath essence, before it had a chance to float away from him, into the other skeleton that was standing idle and waiting. He expected the skeleton to...maybe get stronger, or its bones to get thicker, but what he saw instead was totally different. The undeath essence, now being made visible, was turning into flesh as it combed over the skeletons bones. But thats not all, the undeath essence of the skeleton was also turning into muscle and organs. Albiet they were dead organs that looked black and rotted, they were still organs. By the time it was done, Drake was staring at a corpse with green skin, black scraggly hair, white blank eyes, rotted looking teeth, chunks of skin missing to show bones on the inside, and a stare that looked like the grave itself.


Trained Chakra for 4985 Words = 25 Chakra + 25 JP

WC: 5,000 Approved 25 Chakra + 25 JP

Church bells were ringing as Drake walked down the courtyard of a building he had never seen before, the white pebbles crushing each other under his feet. It was at that point that Drake realized he was sleeping; his actual body was lying under the covers on his mat. Were anyone to be in the room at that moment they would swear a bug hand landed on his face as it quickly twitched from left to right before Drake’s eyes popped open, releasing his mind from the sleep state. Church bells continued to ring, but now the sound had a fuller sound, Drake turned his head to the left to see the small gray alarm clock with red digits that read “5:30am". Rotating his body to the left Drake flung his right hand over to slap the top of his alarm clock affectively ending the church bells that he hated so much. "Hate that alarm clock" and after a long sigh "Guess it is time to get up."

Drake completed his roll and lifted himself up into a seat position, his blankets falling off his back near the foot of his mat. His room was painted with swirls of gold, orange, and red from the single window that faced the now rising sun, coming to life in time with Drake. Drake slowly reached for his prosthetic, his mind still fuzzy from his dream, sliding it across the floor he caught the pattern from his window running along the lines of his leg which caused him to pause before attaching the prosthetic to his real leg. Ugh, what time is it? he asked himself and looked back at the alarm clock to read "5:34am, been 4 minutes…" I could probably sleep for another 10 minutes he thought after reading the time. "No I better not" he said to the room that was slowly growing brighter. Drake stood up from his mat, walked to the neatly folded clothes seated on the floor where it connected with the wall, and proceeded to get dressed for the day. When he had finally finished fixing his clothes, including zipping up his sleeveless jacket against the cold of the morning, he tied on his forehead protector around his neck and began to braid his hair in the customary fashion of his clan. "5:44am, ok I have plenty of time" he said to himself as he absentmindedly checked the clock yet again, as if he had actually forgotten what time it was since he last checked. Drake then picked up his sling backpack and began to pack in the necessary stuff for the day "Towel…ground bottle, need to fill it, and now for the food" he spoke as he packed the named items before picking it up and heading for the kitchen. Drake slowly and quietly opened his door to the main hallway, sliding it closed behind himself with his back to the door, and then walked to the kitchen. Make a sandwich, grab some snacks, and then I am out’a here. Drake opened the fridge and pulled out the food he would bring with him, putting the snacks into plastic bags and the sandwich into another. He then mentally went over everything in his pack to be sure he hadn’t forgotten anything, pointing with his finger as he checked, and then lastly checked the knife tucked into his belt. "Time to go…"

Life, it was going on all around Drake. He had come early to the Lake, just after sunrise, in order to train himself. Sweat was pouring from his forehead and his arms glistened as the rising sun’s light glinted off the moisture his run had summoned. I shouldn’t push myself too early, I have a full day ahead of me. The tone of the thought was less scolding and more in approval of the effort he was placing into his work this day. Drake knew moderation was a key in everyday life, but when it came to training he enjoyed pushing himself and at times he pushed himself farther than he realized. Today was not one of those days, but as he unshouldered his sling backpack by clicking the plastic buckle he took in a few long breaths in attempt to slow his heart rate. With his backpack unslung he bent over to place it on the ground and then remembered how bad it was for his back so he switched to bending his knees and plopping down the sit on his heels while balancing on his toes. While unzipping his backpack he reached in to pull out the small dark red towel that he had brought to wipe himself off, but as he did this he felt the pain in his left leg from the prosthetic. I should sit down he thought to himself and looked at the grass, using his hand to test the moisture from the morning dew "Eh not bad, not like anyone is going to be around before my butt dries."

Drake slowly lowered himself backwards and then let his legs straighten out so that the backpack was between them. As he wiped his arms and face to remove the sweat that had accumulated he looked around the area in which he was currently sitting. It was a small clearing roughly 10 meters in diameter, surrounded by trees except for 5 meters of lake shore line. Drake had chosen this spot more for its view than for the purposes of training, he knew he would be able to train anyway "Might as well have a good view while I train."

Ten minutes past while he sat there looking out onto the lake, memories going through his mind but never long enough to form clear pictures. "Get up and train boy" his Id said; though Drake didn’t hear it he still stood up knowing that it was time to get started. Drake stretched his arms as far forward as he could, keeping them parallel to the ground, straining and stretching his back muscles. From the standing position he slowly bent until his palms were flat against the ground, he smiled thinking how he knew some girls who could not stretch that well. He proceeded to go through a number of stretching routines till he felt he was limbered and mentally ready for training. Drake stood back up from the ground where he had completed his stretches and took a number of steps towards one of the trees that encircled the clearing he was in and when he reached the distance he deemed appropriate he stopped and turned to a 45 degree angle with the tree, right side forward.

Drake knew how to mold soft bubbly foam from his lungs, but this would be the culmination of his attempts to make more solid foam. He knew it would take more effort at first to get the right ratio of earth to ground in order to create the more solid foam, even if he could later turn it bubbly. "let’s start with something simple first" Say, changing my skin to foam. Drake slowly, but surely, did the three hand seals, Snake-Rabbit-Ox, and then concentrated on the skin of his right arm. The bubble-pattern birthmark which had given him his nickname slowly appeared as if it was moving, the bubbles seemingly coming to life, before small bubbles actually began to form around his skin. After two attempts he was able to make all the skin on his right arm turn to foam and now he was beginning to want to try the entire jutsu. Patience makes perfect he chided to himself in order to be sure he took all the appropriate steps to training the jutsu. 

Now that he was able to turn his skin to foam it was time to make his entire arm foam. Drake understood what would be happening and mentally reaffirmed what he knew to himself. First I will turn my skin into foam as I did before. Then we’ll slowly turn each cell in my arm to foam, this is a delicate process so you will have to be careful…any mistakes could be bad he said this to himself and then frowned as he realized he didn’t know what the consequences would be or even if there were any more than likely it just won’t work he thought to himself in response. And so he went back through the hand seals, Snake-Rabbit-Ox, and began to work his kekkei genkai. Again his arm started to foam, each bubble-pattern on his skin coming to like and merging with the ones next to it. Then Drake started to concentrate on the cells of his arm and his kekkei genkai so that each cell would become a minute bubble, but still be attached to his arm as if the nerve and chakra pathways still existed within. Though he could not see it the cells within his arm began to ‘pop’ into foam bubbles as if they were kernels of corn in the microwave, but without damage to the actual cells. In a matter of minutes Drake could tell that his entire arm was made of foam and so he decided to test the theory. Pulling out a Kunai from his hip-pouch Drake drew in a deep breath and slammed the Kunai into the foam of his arm…To his shock and happiness he felt nothing as the kunai wedged itself into the foam arm and then as he withdrew it the foam refilled the gap that the kunai had left. "haha! Would you look at that" he said to himself in the small clearing. Drake then released the jutsu and the cells of his arm slowly reverted from their foam state until his right arm was once again back to normal. Drake took time to flex his hand, in test, as well as rotate is shoulder and flex his biceps as if he were worried something would be missing. When he was sure he was fine he set his feet, clenched his teeth and brought his hands up to perform the jutsu in full.

*Snake – Rabbit – Ox* Drake performed each in unison and then said in a well practiced, low, calm voice"Shinchou Eda no jutsu." When he finished his arm began to bubble as it turned to foam, extending and widening till it was roughly 3 meters long and 1/3 of a meter wide, at the end a large hand twisted and flexed its fingers. "hmm…" Drake mused as he moved his now foam arm back and forth, testing flexibility. When he had explored the movement of the foam arm long enough, maybe 1 minute at most, he took sight on the tree he had walked towards and straightened the arm out towards it. With amazing speed the arm shot towards the tree, the hand coming together and twisting around itself so as to create an extremely strong sharp point at the end of the arm. In a second the tip of the foam arm, now needle-sharp spike, crashed into the tree digging into the surface and as it hit it continued to coil up the arm as if still hardening itself.

Not satisfied with testing the jutsu, Drake withdrew the spike-arm from the tree, as he did so four new spikes grew and twisted from the sides of the arm, the center one growing smaller till all 5 matched each other in width and length. Again Drake pondered on the foam arm that he was manipulating as if it were literally his flesh and blood. Quickly Drake turned in place, circular momentum being used to launch the arm backwards toward his backpack and as it did the spike turned back into a foam hand which snapped up the backpack within its large grip. Slowly Drake withdrew the foam arm back into his body till it returned back to his proper arm length and width and then reformed back into his own skin, the backpack strap still in his hand. Drake smiled his toothy smile, happiness clear across his face "I knew I forgot something" he said as he reached in his backpack and withdrew his bottle of ground. He poured a swig into his mouth, washing it around his teeth and cheeks before swallowing, and then replaced the bottle in his back pack.

After replacing the bottle in his back pack Drake slowly stretched his body skyward keeping his arms dangling towards the ground. As he did this he pictured each vertebra in his back slowly clicking into place one at a time and he was eventually rewarded by a small popping sound near the middle of his spin. Once his body had completed its crescendo Drake placed his hands on his hips and bent himself backwards in an attempt to crack the remaining vertebra in his back. "ahhh…" he mused as more cracking sounds followed his twisting sideways motion. "I sure chose a warm day to come out and train" Drake hadn’t realized it till he was standing there staring into the sky, usually impossible due to brightness but the clouds provided him some over. There were beads of sweat sticking to his forehead and arms, though they were so small they would soon evaporate leaving a slightly salty dust on his skin. He was always so shocked how people never noticed the after effect of sweating, as if no one has never gone without a shower all day in the heat, but he noticed it, in fact it annoyed him to no end when he wiped his forehead only to feel the dry dusty feeling.

Drake stood there lost in his thoughts for a number of minutes before he noticing that he had just been standing there staring at the sky, not even imagining pictures in the clouds. "A deer" he said to no one in particular before rousing out of his complacent state and shook his body to welcome back the idea of movement. Drake had thought it over the night before he came here and her knew what he wanted to do next"this is going to take some careful precision if I am going to do this without taking an eye out." He of course had planned out what he was going to do and the danger was not really present, rather he stated the obvious to be sure he didn’t make a mistake out of carelessness. hmm I think I am a little hungry he thought standing there in the middle of the training field, his thought answered by a slight grumble in his stomach. "What time is it!?" it couldn’t have been more than two hours since he left his house that morning. training must be making me hungry he thought. “Well I have all day, no reason I can’t do a little fishing…" just saying it made him smile, Drake always enjoyed the relaxing time of fishing. "no rod…" he said as he looked out onto the lake through the small opening in the trees. Drake looked around the area, starting with a slow circular gaze and moving to a small circle walk, he seemed to be thinking but his mind was blank. He grabbed his bottle as he began his stroll over to the edge of the clearing where a small lake shore would allow him to take in some fishing. 

Once his little stroll had brought him to the edge of the lake Drake began to look for a good place to sit. The ground of the lake was surprisingly see through from where Drake stood, he could even make out the odd trout here or there around the small grasses that swayed with the in out current clearly people are swimming or practicing suiton jutsu somewhere. he thought to himself while he bent to check the loose dark brown soil near the edge of the ground. "…seems dry enough…" when am I going to start training some suiton jutsu he thought to himself as he slowly lowered himself down to the ground using his right arm and right leg to stabilize his body as he sank, trying not to rub his pants needlessly on the soil. Drake was wearing his now normal gray pants and it always seemed that whenever he got in close contact with soil it clung like no other as a stain until he had time to wash it out.

It was roughly 8am from what Drake could tell, he hadn’t brought a watch with him, not that he owned one anyway. His father had taught him how to tell relative time by using the sun as an indicator, there were a number of tricks such as knowing where you were in relation to geography or using sticks in the ground, but Drake knew where he was and so he opted for the less accurate method of deciding where the sun is on a 180 degree chart to choose the time, it was about 8am. Now to see about that fish, from where he sat the ground line was about half a meter in front of him, he happened to be sitting on a small raised section giving him a position about a foot above the ground level, just perfect for fishing. Father told Masaru and me something about not fishing with the sun to our back, what was it? Drake’s hand came to his chin as he searched his memory for a clue to what his father had told them. As he thought he tried to imagine what happened before and after the conversation in the hopes that the spatial awareness would give him some ability to better remember that time back on their fishing trip two summers ago. The day was warm; Drake could remember the sweat pouring down his face when the sun had finally reached its crescendo, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky that day, he had kept his head down peering into the ground for so long that crick had developed in his neck. And then there was the fish that Masaru let pull him in the ground, nearly tipping the boat, the thought of which made Drake snicker as he sat alone at the ground’s edge. "oh the good old times" Drake said to someone who wasn’t there and when he turned his head to the right to smile he realized that he was talking to a ghost. The realization wiped the smile from his face as he scrunched his lips together in contemplation Next time I need to bring someone with me.

Drake sat there for several minutes lost in his thoughts of the past, but his search within memory was found to be fruitless when he could not remember his father’s words. well that sucks he thought when he had finally given up trying to remember. With his belly still grumbling Drake decided to get back to his work of catching fish. His left hand went behind him to reach inside his hip pouch, grabbing a kunai with his pointer finger in the small circular end. He switched the kunai to his right hand and cocked his arm so that the crook of his elbow was around his neck. "Here fishy fishy" he said as he scanned the shoreline for an early lunch. "There!" he said as his right arm shot forward propelling the kunai straight forward into the ground ahead of him, his right hand kept point straight towards where his kunai splashed into the ground. Drake looked on into the ground in the hopes of seeing a fish floating on the surface, but what he hadn’t accounted for was the muddiness of the ground. Apparently he had missed and in doing so had caused the ground to turn brown with kicked up dirt from his kunai "I just lost a kunai…awesome" He sat there staring at the ground for another minute before he leaned back to wait for the ground to clear. Can’t keep losing kunai "Aha! Where is my wire?" Drake jumped out of his seat and ran the few steps back to his bag in the middle of the field, reaching into the bag and pulling out a spool of metal wire usually used during missions. Drake started to walk back to the edge of the ground but then turned around to pick up his bag and carry it back to the shore, there was no sense leaving it there if he needed anything else.

Drake plopped down on the shore yet again, this time slightly less reverently. Now he took out another kunai from his pouch, flipping it so that the circular opening at the bottom was in the 12 o’clock position. With his left hand he shoved the kunai tip first in the ground between his legs, it will be easier to tie this way. Now he took his spool of wire in both hands and pulled a length out of about a meter. With the end of the wire in hand Drake slide it through the end of the kunai and tied a triple knot to ensure it remained connected. That done, Drake loosened another 3 meters of wire from the spool and stood up, patting the dirt from hands pants as he did."ground seems clear enough"he said to himself in confirmation before reaching down to pull the kunai, attached to the wire, from its spot in the ground. More in jest than in reality, Drake shouted "Have at Ye!" as he threw the kunai into the ground with a splash after one of the fish he saw. No dirt clouded the ground this time, now his kunai floated at the surface sticking out the other end of a trout just big enough to make a good brunch. Drake pulled on the wire he had tied to the kunai and the fish slowly moved through the ground toward him until it hit the shoreline and he lifted it up on a string. As Drake pulled the kunai out of the fish and washed it in the ground he realized he had made the mistake of not bringing any tools to make a fire to cook the fish stupid me, who gets food but forgets they don’t have anything to cook it with?.

"well it isn’t a total loss, I could always figured something out later" Drake looped the wire back around the tail of the fish and placed it back in the ground. He knew that the cool lake ground would keep the fish until he figured out how to cook it or bring it back home when he was done training. With that done Drake washed his hands in the lake and walked the two feet up the slope to his bag and as he bent to retrieve the pack he had an idea. "What if it wasn’t just one kunai, but hundreds senbon…" the thought hit him just as if someone had slapped him on the back of the head, "That’a boy", and his being lost in the thought made the slap seem even more real when he tripped and fell flat on his face.

"hm I could make this work I think, just need to get the proportions correct" he said to himself as stood back up from the ground trying to ignore having fallen over no one is watching anyway. Drake picked up his backpack and started to walk back towards the center of the clearing where he places the backpack down on the ground again. Drake looked at the palms of his hands out in front of him, preparing himself for the next jutsu he would try, this one he had thought up himself. remember the kunai you threw he thought to himself as if talking to someone, not knowing that his Id was listening "yes I do" it said it response, but still he did not hear it. Drake was facing the lake as he went through the hand seals and then held out his palms again. Each palm bubbled and foamed forming a handful (literally) of foam which he combined together into a ball the size of a softball. He then pivoted in placed and launched the foam ball towards the tree line. He watched as it went soaring into the trees and then he performed the Boar hand seal causing the foam ball to instantly harden and explode showering the trees in a 360 degree radius with steel hard foam senbon. "Hazzah" he said as he pumped a fist into the air, after which he ran towards the trees to see how the jutsu had worked. To his liking all the trees were covered with a varying amount of senbon half sticking out of the trees "Oh I could definitely use this against a group of people" he mused to himself, placing his hands on his hips and admiring his work.

Having completed the training he had set out to do Drake decided to take a break by attempting something much simpler. "Time to become a true Konoha ninja" Drake said to himself as he sat besides his backpack on the ground. There may be a time when I need to get away he thought to himself while his closed his eyes and controlled his breath, In, out, in, out… centering his body, Drake straightened his back so that his legs and torso were and a 90 degree position. He then crossed his legs into the Indian-style position and connected his palms together. Focusing his chakra into the technique Drake a soft mist enfolded the area around him. I can feel the cooling moisture of mist around me he thought while still encapsulated by his closed eyelids. As he opened his eyes a single word came out of his mouth "gray".

Drake knew he was terrible at genjutsu, a fact more due to his lack of training than to any inability to actually perform the jutsu. Drake stood back up, surrounded by the mist, and began to focus his chakra again. This time the effort was more than he was used to having little former training in genjutsu. Drake slowly formed the hand seals and focused his mind on the imaginary, a problem for a mind so based in reality. After a few tries he was able to finally perform the genjutsu and mist-like hands shot out from Drake making it seem like he was punching in the air.

(Final Post as I'm leaving Konoha, 4400 Words = 22 Chakra + 22 JP)

Approved for +22 Chakra and +22 JP