Uncle? [Solo]

Ayumi woke up to a cat cutely meowing on the roof outside her window. Their home had two floors and Ayumi was staying in the only room in the second floor. The cats fur had the color of chocolate and its eyes were green, it must have been scared when it woke Ayumi up so it ran away after she yawned and straightened up. Normally she would chase it but she had just woken up and 2 hours earlier than her sleeping schedule, by which she would wake up relatively early already. She wasn't able to sleep easily after waking up so she didn't even try to get back to sleep. She got up from her bed, reset the alarm and took a warm shower. She made sure to remove her necklace before getting in though, no need to become a mermaid in a tub.

After her nice shower, she wore her red bikini, put her necklace back around her neck and went downstairs. Her uncle was probably still asleep so she was careful not to make too much noise. She was going down on the staircase step by step as silent as she could be but after a few steps she saw Gortak sitting on the couch reading something. "Good morning uncle, what are you doing this early in the day?" she asked curiously, he was a working man and he was sleeping rather late, he needed his sleep for good performance.

"Hey Ayumi" he responded with no feeling on his face, he seemed serious."Good morning, I wasn't expecting you to get up yet, are you heading to the training grounds again?" he asked as his eyes browsed through her body, he was probably confused about her clothing. She hadn't told him about her "mermaid form" yet. He smiled "I guess you found out about your necklace. Alright, I'll come with you to the training today."

Ayumi stood there for a couple of seconds, what was going on, was she dreaming? Her father or uncle weren't shinobi, how did he know about the necklace and why didn't he tell her earlier? "What.. what are you talking about? Did you know its.. power?" she was shocked, and what would they train even if he knew about the necklace? Was he able to become a mermaid too? She pictured him with a tail for a second and giggled. She had to hold on and let her uncle explain for now, things were surely weird and she wasn't even close to putting the pieces together to understand what was going on.

"I'll explain things when we arrive there, I was wondering when you would enter the water with it, you sure were careful for a long time." Great, she had to wait until they arrived to the training ground. "Can you at least explain while we walk? I really want to know what this is all about" Gortak looked her in the eyes as they walked out of the door he replied "Alright, the dolphin necklace as you can guess is no ordinary necklace. It was given to your father by our sister Miruna, who is also a water user. You probably got your efficiency from her and.. and when we discovered you are a water user, we gave the necklace to you."

"Miruna?" this was the first time Ayumi heard about an aunt. She always thought her mother was an only child and his father only had one brother, Gortak. Her uncle continued "You unfortunately never got to meet her, she died in a war before you were born, she was a powerful shinobi known as 'The Mermaid', she was the one who inscribed this into that necklace to inherit her jutsu, I am sure you two would get along pretty well, she looked a lot like you." they were getting closer to the training ground as the conversation continued "But.. why didn't you tell me about its powers" Ayumi didn't get it, there was no reason to keep it a secret.

"Your father was going to tell you before.." they stopped walking and there was silence for a while. "..he passed away. I wanted to tell you after it but it wasn't really my place to explain it, I wanted you to find it on your own first. And if you learned about it earlier, when you were less strong, you would have trouble handling it or protecting the necklace. It also served as a test for you."

Ayumi didn't respond until they arrived to the training ground, she was still wondering what her uncle would do to help her, he was an ordinary man only with exceptional cooking skills in Ayumi's eyes. They walked near the river and Gortak started to make some seals, it was the seals of... Water-heavens convergence?? Water started to extract from the river and started spinning around him in unbelievable speeds in different angles, like electrons around the nucleus. His skill surpassed hers easily, even Senba wouldn't be a matchup for him "I thought it would be best to show you rather than explain, you would probably have a hard time believing so here I am, I am also a water-user. I just wanted you to improve on your own until you were strong enough to be my subordinate." he smirked.

Ayumi was mixed with feelings, she was shocked with this sudden change, sad about how this was a secret all this time, happy about having a master of her own, and had a million more feelings when he continued, "I know this is all very sudden but I kept it a secret for your training to be more efficient, you made many friends and created your own attacks from water-heavens convergence, you were more creative and self-dependent. If you feel angry at me and don't want to train with me or even live with me I'd understand. I've been waiting this day to come for a long time wondering what your reaction would be. If you can use the mermaid form, you are strong enough now, I am ready to train you." he looked enthusiastic waiting for her response.

WC:1027
{Not done until exit}

She sat down to the shadow of a tree to reprogress what was happening, she still couldn't snap out of it. He must have understood how difficult it was for her so he stopped talking and pressed his enthusiasm to sit with her until she answered. "Ok" Ayumi replied, she had to say something. It was probably going to be a weird training day today, but as she got used to him, it would probably be easier and this was best for Ayumi's development as a shinobi. Her uncle's eyes shined for a second, "Thanks for allowing me, so.. can you show me all you learned so far? And by all, I mean everything you can do from ninjutsu to taijutsu, genjutsu... everything. And leave your 2 jutsu, Water-Heavens Convergence and Mermaid Form to the last. I will mostly help with them but I want to see your abilities."

She got up, and thought what to show first, this was a weird feeling as if she was trying to prove herself to him, to her parent. She knew it was natural for a child to think that way, after achieveing something they run to their parents to show it off, but this was the first time she felt this for a long time. She decided to start with something simple, at least simple for her. "Mizu Bunshin no Jutsu!" three clones appeared to her right, to her left and to her front from thin air. "Good, it seems like you are pretty comfortable with this one." she told him how she can create upto 4 clones and in great distances and asked if she should show it or preserve chakra for the rest. "Let's see the others first, we'll need a lot of chakra for later.

She continued with her mist technique, after she took her stance, the place started to get foggy. After the mist got really thick someone training from a bit far away yelled "Trying to practice throwing here!!" she apologized and removed the mist on that side only. Gortak didn't look too impressed though, it was a D-rank technique after all but Ayumi thought it was a very useful one. "Next!"

She decided to go for one of her stronger techniques, water dragon was lately becoming her signature move along with water heavens convergence, she was able to create bigger and faster dragons everyday as she trained, although it drained a lot of chakra she loved using it. As the mist faded, she used 11 handseals and whispered Suiton: Suiryuudan no Jutsu! a mighty dragon appeared from the water with red eyes, went straight at a tree with very high speed and torned it off its middle. The dragon was still moving after destroying the tree, she made it go back into the river and turn into water. "Impressive", Gortak knew she was training a lot but probably didn't expect this big of a jutsu from her, after all she was still only a genin.

Ayumi liked the face she saw on Gortak, he looked proud. The other 3 techniques she knew were more suitable for taijutsu. She showed Gortak her Sweeping Dragon Tail, Afterimage and Body Flicker one by one, trying her best to increase her speed in each of them. Gortak was mainly involved with ninjutsu so he didn't really care too much about these techniques although Afterimage and Body Flicker were important for any speedy ninja.

When Ayumi was done with all the techniques other than her Mermaid Form and Water-sky convergence, they sat near the tree for her to replenish all the chakra and stamina, she told Gortak she wasn't tired yet but Gortak insisted: "Our training will be quite harsh, you'll be glad we took a break." Most people would be terrified after a statement like that, but Ayumi loved pushing herself so she nodded and rested for twenty minutes. When she finally thought she was full of chakra and stamina, they stood up and went near the river again.

"Our family has a history with the mermaid form as I explained, but only you have managed to use the mermaid form and water-sky convergence.. you can surpass us all if you find a good way to mix those. What I mean is, normally mermaid form can only be kept in water, but since you can produce water from the ground, you should be able to keep your mermaid form at all times by surrounding yourself with water." Gortak explained. It made sense, and it couldn't be that hard, she was already used to forming her water shield cylindrically around her but normally she kept a little bit of a distance between her and the water so she wouldn't drown... but that wasn't a problem in her mermaid form.

"Alright, here I go!" she drew water from the ground as bubbles followed by forming a cylindrical water shield around her, this time it was completely surrounding her so she was actually in the water. Her necklace started to shine after it interacted with a big amount of water and in seconds, Ayumi was in her mermaid form. "Good, now as long as this shield remains intact, you will remain in your mermaid form. Try to move the shield with you in it now." She tried to wrap herself in the water and move it first slowly, it didn't seem too hard. As she increased the speed, the difficulty didn't change until the water became faster than her normal movement speed. It was too much speed for her brain to handle right away so she was getting a little nauseous but in reality, it was like riding any vehicle.

"Alright not bad, let's see how well you can move your water shield.", they walked into an area with lots of trees, Gortak wanted her to move from one point to another through this "forest" without going up, meaning she had to dodge the trees as she went in high speed. She started right away with her highest speed, focusing all her chakra to the shield as she also tried to not fall from the shield by wrapping herself into it. Her mermaid form was increasing her movement speed but still, it was not even close to water's speed. During all this, she was also dodging trees in matter of miliseconds, when she made it to the destination, a clone of Gortak was already there holding a chronometer. "Again!" this time she went from Gortak's clone to Gortak, decreasing her time and increasing her skill. She was going through the forest like this for the 37th time and each time she had decreased her time but Gortak wasn't convinced yet, she was getting used to the pattern of trees, so it was also getting easier to dodge them but all of the sudden a tree that she could swear it wasn't there the last 36 times showed up in front of her, she tossed right into it and collapsed. The tree also fell down from the high speed she was coming with but Ayumi wasn't consious to see that.

WC:2248

When she woke up Gortak was meditating near the river, she stood up slowly without making any sound but he somehow must have felt her waking up so he stood up and turned to her. And she thought she was leaving quietly without waking him up everyday..

"Woke up already huh? Alright, your fault was to memorize patterns, during battles you will be in territory you are not familiar with so you have to be able to react in your movement, we aren't testing your movement in patterns here. And to get your mind off it, yes I created that tree, only it was just a pole which looked like a tree to you by my jutsu. Sadly I can't create trees out of nowhere. Let's try again, are you ready?"

Ayumi and Gortak walked to the forest, Gortak created a clone again and they started training, it was getting late and the sun was going down as Ayumi kept training. Gortak wasn't convinced with her times yet, she wasn't using her jutsu and her chakra capacity to its fullest. It took Ayumi days and more than 100 hits on the head by huge trees to truly master her shield-vehicle. She was doing extraordinary times back to back, almost close to what her boyfriend would do if he were training. She was having a hard time with this for the last days but the training was showing its worth rather quickly.

After Gortak was convinced with her times, he stopped her. "Seems like you are good to go. We will start second part of your training tomorrow morning. You need to get some good rest today, it will only get harder from here. Let's go home and I'll cook you a good dinner, whatever you want." he smiled and started walking without waiting for Ayumi. She quickly stood up and ran near him, "I want fried chicken then!"

WC:2573
{EXIT}
+12 stats, +25 JP, +2573 words to Water-Heavens Convergence