Training to occupy a troubled mind ( private )

It had been two days since Sanji left his home, two days of solitude where he didn't want to see another living soul. He wouldn't have fought against such a prospect but no one ever knocked on his door. Friends were few and far between. So few he couldn't really name even one. Sanji's tall, muscular form maneuvers the streets of Konoha, hardly bothering to make eye contact with anyone else. He walked coldly past merchants who tried to garner his attention, almost resenting the fact that they only address him in a bid to make some ryo off him. Sanji's usually ambiguous expression was grim, he just wanted to go train until his body gave out on him. If it was a permanent failure of his physical form, so be it. The village gave way to trees as he walked to the training grounds, intentionally choosing the one farthest from everyone else, figuring no one else would be there. He trudged along to the training area and began stretching himself, hands behind his head, turning his body from side to side to stretch his obliques and lower back muscles. Sanji didn't bother with the usual warm up routine, it seemed like a waste to him. If his body wasn't ready at a moment's notice then it was clear that he was definitely in the wrong business. Enemies don't give you time to stretch before they try to kill you, they just try to kill you.

He maneuvered onto a branch in a tree and hung with his legs from it, his body inverted. When he was ready, he began doing hanging sit ups, making sure to touch his torso to his knees each time. He also abandoned the practice of counting reps. It would end when he was physically incapable of doing anymore. As he continued this self-torment for the sake of his body and preparation for a career that only seemed to break the hearts of everyone involved in the world of ninja. Sweat dripped off his brow as he thought about the implications of a life in a profession where the average lifespan of those within it was maybe 20 years of age, and that was merely because younger ninja were paired with more experienced, elite ninja just to keep them alive long enough in hopes that they'll be the next generation of elites. Not everyone is cut out for that life, howevere. Some die on their first mission, no matter how mundane it may be. This was a cursed business and he was beginning to question the merit of constantly seeking to amass more and more power so that powerful ninja can be brandished like weapons to stem the dissent that runs rampant not just between nations, but between people.

It was a terrible thing to do, but Sanji had snuck into the archives many times and gotten his hands on classified documents containing the information about deceased ninjas, including how they died. The running theme was rather shocking. They died in such simple ways, such as an jounin accidentally poisoning himself by eating after contending with a frog whose venom is reputed to be among the world's deadliest toxins. He didn't even bother to wash his hands before putting his fingers in his mouth to lick away the remnants of a snack he was eating. He died in two minutes flat. Simple oversight or careless mistakes in battle, that seems to be the chief causes of demise among those he calls comrades. Sanji also wasn't at all fond of the process that he'd noticed he was going through, especially recently with the A-Rank mission he tackled. He cruelly slashed a shinobi's tendons so he wouldn't have the use of his fingers anymore, so he could no longer form seals. At the time it seemed like a sound protective effort on his part and would save him the trouble of dealing with him in battle later on. Just the thought of doing that to another person without thought or remorse sickened him. He had since lost touch with that shinobi, having last saw him when he dropped him and 5 bandits off at the interrogation center. It's likely none of those people were still among the living. Their wandering souls probably crying for vengeance against him.

Throughout his wandering thoughts Sanji kept chugging along, for nearly 20 minutes, and his constant thinking distracted him from the fact that his muscles felt like they were on fire. It was rather impressive to be able to zone out to such a degree. When his body started to refuse to rise to the point he commanded it to throughout the exercise, he finally let himself down. Now without the pain-dulling power of distraction, he fell to one knee and clutched his abdomen with a choked grunt of pain. He worked on stretching out and gradually got the agonized muscles to working again. However his next endeavor would cause those abs even more pain, though maybe not directly. Sanji still had that sand-filled backpack, and he put it on himself before he hit the deck, his abs still aching as he began doing pushups with an extra 200 pounds on his back. Again his mind wandered, blocking out the pain.

Sanji's thoughts this time turned to the villagers that he felt he did all this for. Sure, they didn't always show that much appreciation, but maybe it was best that they be left out of the loop in terms of just what goes on to make sure they're allowed to rest their heads peacefully at night. And inevitably this brought him onto the subject of his dear parents. A father who didn't leave this world willingly but died in the midst of combat, and a mother who wasn't content to live life without her husband, choosing to abandon her only son and send herself to the afterlife in search of the man she married. He hated the thought of resenting her for that, he even made morbid jokes at his own expense to try and get some laughs out of a terrible situation, saying things like his mother had took her own life to get away from him because he was not good company and his jokes weren't funny. That joke wasn't funny either. Inside his home Sanji felt like a hermit who inexplicably exiled himself to the middle of civilization, and miraculously managed to live a life of solitude, maybe not uninterrupted solitude, but nonetheless, living alone and being alone can make one feel like the last person on earth sometimes. It seemed that this exercise thing to free his mind from the burden of depressing thoughts was having the opposite effect.

Again pain finally won the battle after 10 minutes of this hellish torture, and Sanji slowly rolled onto his side, relieving the backpack from his back and laying in the grass, staring up at the starry blue sky as he rests. The rest didn't last long though as he got up, slipped the backpack on, and began running circles around the training ground he was on, content to simply do hundreds of small laps instead of a few big ones. His body was sweating profusely at this point, having already put himself through the wringer with just 2 concrete exercises. This was the third. Every 10 laps around the 1500 square foot training ground meant he had to do 100 squats with the weight on his back, which he did. After the 100th lap, though, and before the 100th squat of that set, he collapsed right there on the ground. Again he sluggishly freed himself from the weight and looked up at the sky. After that workout his body almost felt broken. And when he did at last decide to move again it was a painful prospect. He growled and winced as he sat up and got to his feet, lofting the bag once again onto his back. If he couldn't continue that brisk pace then he'd punish himself by walking for a few miles with this weight on. This time he didn't bother zoning out, in fact he found that he couldn't. His feet felt extra heavy as he forced himself to take each grueling step. He panted and walked through the village, ignoring the shocked looks of the villagers as he continued forcing this hell on himself. Left, then right. Left, then right. That was all that he could possibly think about now. In a way making himself hurt to such a degree through training felt justified, and he became hungrier for the pain in a strange twist.

Would his dear leader really smile on him for this torture he was putting himself through? He lavished the thought in sarcastic quips in his mind. Then he shook it off and sighed. No, no matter what he was determined that he wouldn't become such a bitter person. The greatest criminals this world has ever seen get their starts in just such a way. But then it could be reasonably argued that the ones in charge create such monsters with their own deceitful behavior. Sanji knew this for a fact, for on one of his trips to the archives he managed to obtain some interesting information regarding the actions of past leaders dating back long before the cataclysm that changed the face of this world for good. He had read both kind and borderline gushing words about such leaders as the true first hokage of Konoha, before the cataclysm. How he was purportedly related to the sage of the six paths and that he could do no wrong, never smelled like anything but flowers, etc. To imply that no leader on the scale of a kage had blood on their hands was just ignorant and silly. By definition ninja have blood on their hands, many kill before they turn 15, and it's only those taking non-combative roles in this illustrious ninja hell that don't take a life by that age. But they get to it eventually. Tools to kill, that's how ninja are portrayed even in their own instruction books in their academies. The guidelines of being a ninja asked impossible things of them all. No one can kill their emotions, it's impossible. Everyone can be swayed and even the most distant mind will eventually end a life they regret ending. That alone was telling of how unnatural this whole way of living was.

Sanji's trip at last ended with him trudging up to his doorstep, quite exhausted and depressed at the same time. He haphazardly let the sand-filled pack fall before he carelessly removed his boots, tossing them angrily to the floor, and going to his bathtub to soak his aching body and probably continue tormenting his own mind with fruitless rationale about why anyone would think a world filled with ninjas was a good idea when even skills meant to save lives can also serve the purpose of taking them. Sanji undressed, ran himself a hot bath, and slipped into the water. Luckily the tub was at least big enough to allow most of him to soak. He rubbed down sore muscles in the mean time as he stared at the wall. Exhaustion was setting in fast, which usually happens after one comes home to a comfort, no matter how mundane, to ease the pain they've caused themselves even a little. Sanji truly considered the bliss of going to sleep and never waking. He could leave all this behind and not have to suffer, physically, or emotionally anymore. Yes, it's what his mother did, why wouldn't it be good for him too? Because as much despair as he was in, he wasn't ready to give up. He was terrible at showing it but he did love the people of this village, for whatever reason. Perhaps it's because unlike him they have happy lives that they lead, and messing that up for them by being too weak to do anything about whatever may threaten their ldyllic lifestyles is akin to, in his mind, pulling the proverbial trigger himself. So, for now he'd forge ahead, no matter how empty his heart felt, and continue to be the sacrificial lamb upon whose sacrifice the lives of the many can flourish and be happy.

( Word count: 2045 )

Approved

10 JP
10 Stamina

Correction, 10 Stats and 20JP.
JP is awarded every 100 words, not every 200, Lost.
Due to a specific field of training not being listed, it is just given as raw stats.