Hiding Like A Mole (Solo)

The morning, surprisingly, was not as cold as she thought it would be. That's doesn't mean Aya hated the idea of getting out of the warm cocoon of her bed. But alas, the day was awaiting, and she had promised herself to visit the library and find a more offensive jutsu to learn, so with no small amount of reluctance, the redhead pulled herself out of her warm haven and into the semi-cold air of her room.

A shower, change of clothes, and War Over the Breakfast Table later, Aya was wandering about the roads and markets of her village. Taking the long way to the library to grab a morning snack of dumplings with a cup of green tea, and decided to sit on a high roof and enjoy her morning snack instead of walk and eat. which meant she ended up people watching for the majority of the morning, as she was wont to do when she stayed in one area for more than a few minutes. Once she was finished, and she had disposed of her rubbish, she was jumping from rooftop to light post to random surface.

Reaching the library was easy, and with a wave to the familiar lady at the front desk, she moved straight to the isles with the jutsu. She could sense the chakra signatures of those guarding the library, but she was smart enough to know there were ninja concealing their chakra signatures. She ignored them and moved to the isle that held the doton jutsu, and let a gust of breath leave her. There were so many more techniques than in the medical isle. She had a vague idea of what she wanted, and so dove in.

It only took a minute for her to find something she liked, and it only took a few minutes for her to absolutely loath the technique.

Aya glared at the scroll in front of her. It was the scroll explaining the technique Hiding Like a Mole and she was not enjoying herself. She could hardly understand it, even though she considers herself rather smart, this was killing her brain with the sheer lack information and detail.
 
Turn the earth beneath the users feet into a fine sand, or something akin to that, by using chakra. Then they sink into the ground. How can the user breathe? How is she supposed to use 'magnetic forces'? How can they sense what is happening on the surface?
 
Medical texts made more sense than this! And they are full of analogies, medical terminologies, diagrams and they have a eight-hundred-page book on fingers and every way they can be broken, dislocated, infected, and they can be affected/effected by just about every internal and external factor that has been studied and discovered. And she understood that better than this!

Rereading the scroll again she derived what she was supposed to do. There were no seals for this, of that she knew, and you needed earth-nature chakra for this to work. And she had that, so no problem there, even though she had never actually tried to do anything involving her earth-nature before now she was pretty sure that she could figure it out on her own... or at least figure it out as she went. The gist of the jutsu was to allow you to disappear underground, and move around under the surface of said earth. You could also, somehow, sense what was going on and tell when people were on the surface. You could tell if someone was walking on the ground, but not if they're in a tree or something. Not to mention the scroll didn't even have a letter on how you were supposed to breathe down there!
 
Most her questions were orbited around the 'how'? And she was greatly desiring more information and detail about the whole thing. It was just in her nature, she hated gaps where one had to guess and speculate, preferring to have a clear and concise idea of what she was meant to do. This just made it so much more frustrating!
 
Running a hand through her hair for the umpteenth time, and mussing it up more so than it already was. Giving up completely, she just pulled her ties out and allowed her hair to flow freely down her back and over her shoulders. Rolling her shoulders, she read the, limited, information once again even though she had memorised the whole thing. A sigh escaped her lips, and she stood with the scroll. Rolling it up, she walked down the appropriate isle and placed the scroll in the appropriate spot among the other earth-jutsu scrolls.
 
The trip to the training grounds was a quick one, having long since memorised the route from the library to the training grounds, and vice versa. And when she landed in the familiar clearing, empty as usual, and she sat down to begin she chakra exercises.
 
Gathering her chakra into a tight ball at her centre, she slowly allowed it to flow at a controlled pace. First down to her legs and feet and toes, then up past her torso and shoulders, down her arms to her hands and the tips of her fingers. Finally allowing it through her neck and head. She would gather her chakra in random points of her body and hold it there for several minutes before allowing it to flow freely, she did this multiple time before she eventually stopped and stood. With a deep breath, she began her training.

Sending a small amount of chakra into the ground beneath her feet, she inspected the earth. Analysing and just getting the general 'feel' of the ground with her chakra. It was... nice, it felt soft and cool and, in a strange sort of way, still. Like nothing could move it, but at the same time oddly pliable. She did not know how long she just stood there, eyes closed and unmoving, feeling the earth and simply enjoying the new sensation. Aya had known she was had earth nature chakra, but had never really thought much about it nor known what it could entail. But this, this ability to almost be part of the ground, to interact with the soil, even understand the earth gave her a new appreciation to the whole concept of elemental jutsu.

Aya had to berate herself at losing herself, and refocused on actually learning the jutsu. Taking a deep breath, the redhead sent more chakra into the soil until it was saturated with her energy. Now she had to find a way to make the ground allow her to sink beneath the ground. Well...

She was stumped. Completely stumped on that particularly fine point.

What was she supposed to do? Turn it into something like silt? No, no she was meant to do... turn it into a fine sand? Yeah, that was it. How was she supposed to do that? A huff escaped her, but she persevered. Focusing again on the earth beneath her, she inspected it again but did not allow herself to get lost with the sensations of the earth. Eventually, she just had a mental 'screw it' moment and tried to command the soil to obey her, but naturally that didn't work. She felt frustration begin to bubble in her chest, but shoved it away and focused once again.

Finally, she came up with another idea. Using her chakra, she made it crumble under her will, become something that was almost a liquid-solid mixture. The earth being the solid and her chakra being the liquid. She felt herself begin to sink slowly into the earth, it was a lot like quicksand if she thought about it, but suddenly stopped when she reached her knees. Opening her eyes in surprise and confusion, the teen stared down at her legs, since her feet were currently underground. The earth was solid around her form, but she could wiggled her toes with minimal effort, so the jutsu was still in affect.

'I must be using the most minimal amount of chakra for the technique' Aya realised with a distant form of fascinated surprise. She moulded more chakra and shoved it into the earth. The redhead medic didn't even have time to gasp before she suddenly saw nothing but black.

Blinking, she looked around, but it was the same. She moved her hand in front of her face, but belatedly recognised the feeling of earth-on-skin. Allowing a slab of earth to go back to its naturally-solid state in front of her, she thumped her head on it. She had successfully performed Hiding Like A Mole Technique, duh! She had just sunk faster than she could react, and obviously that had given her a bit of confusion to contend with. Seriously, sometimes she could be a complete and utter idiot, at least she has an easy time understanding medical texts despite their complexity... then again maybe that just makes it more sad, since she's supposed to be quick-minded.

Shaking away those thoughts, the teen took an experimental breath, and found she could actually breathe normally. Aya decidedly, and stubbornly, chose not to think on how she could, and just accepted it at face value, writing off as a 'jutsu thing' and moving on. Once she had sorted that out, she tried moving through the soil.

It was like being in water, the earth readily parted as she moved her and moved like water around her, a little shift of her chakra and she was gliding through the ground. Moving sideways, forwards, backwards, up and down with actually physically moving. Okay, she was now willing to happily admit, this was way more fun than she thought it would be, even if it felt a little weird at the beginning. She twisted and bent, doing flips like one would underwater, and moving her limbs through the soil with childish fascination.

Once she was done fooling around, she sent her attention up to the surface, and found herself taking a sudden gulp of air. While she had been messing around, she had actually moved from the training grounds to a place where a lot of people were walking about. It was like with Chakra Senses, only that you could sense when someone stepped on the ground. A lot of people were stopping, and then walking after a few moments or a few minutes, and often with heavier steps, like they were carrying things. Some steps were light and almost non-existent, but she felt them all the same.

"A market-place, I suppose" she muttered to herself, and it was strange to hear her muffled voice underground. She began moving away after a few minutes of listening and sensing the on-goings of the land above, intending to go back to the training grounds. But then she felt that she was moving slower than she should be. Ah, Aya smiled wryly to herself, she was low on chakra. The young medic probably wouldn't reach the training ground, so she moved over to where she sensed an alley was, and then rose through the pressed earth. The cold air immediately assaulted her, and she shivered. She was born in amongst these mountains, and yet she had never been very resilient against the cold, but her theory was that she had a lower core-temperature. She would probably handle the desert better than her comrades, if she ever went out that far.

"I think something hot would do fine" she said to herself, and walked into the market and towards the nearest café she spotted. A hot-chocolate and a muffin sounded heavenly right now, and with it being late afternoon and far more cooler than the morning had been, she felt like she deserved it. Idly, she wondered what other technique she would be learning next, but once she entered the café her brain immediately began wondering if she should have the double-dark-choc muffin or the vanilla heaven one, and if she should have two or three marshmallows in her hot chocolate, because a hot chocolate is not a hot chocolate if there wasn't any marshmallows in it.

(Hiding Like A Mole Technique: learned. Total word count: 2021, 20jp, 10 stat points)

Approved