The Development of a Sociopath (solo training)

Kemuri's eyes would shoot open; the smoky look of his irises flickering about, giving the appearance that he was in distress. Another nightmare about his early childhood. He would raise his hands to his face, rubbing his eyes as he sat up in the bed. Looking around the room, he would notice that it was still dark outside, the useless bits of objects that were supposed to be considered sentimental casting their shadows from the moonlight onto the floor. He stood from his bed, making his way to the door and sliding it open before making his way into the main living area, a single room which contained a table, two chairs/pillow things that Japanese people use rather than actual seats, and several surfaces such as shelves on the walls along with a portrait of Kemuri's family. Although it was still dark out, Kemuri would put on his standard attire and make his way out onto the streets of the village, wandering around for some time simply looking at the scenery which, to be quite frank, was not stellar. It was only when the sun had just begun to peek over the horizon that Kemuri would realize how long he had been just wandering around doing nothing. –I have to become stronger, - he thought, looking out towards the training grounds –and there’s only one way to do that right now-. Kemuri began to walk down the road, passing by villagers that would give him strange looks, likely due to his choice of clothing, as he went through the village gates, ignoring several shop keeps trying to get his attention. Once outside, he began to walk down the road, the trees waving slightly at the wind, which made him on edge. Shortly after setting off down the road, he would come across a side-path that led to the training grounds which he would turn onto arriving in a couple minutes. At the training grounds would be surprisingly few people at the moment, but still too many for him to feel comfortable doing exactly what he planned to train with in front of them, as keeping his abilities secret was one of his most valuable assets. He made his way to an area of the training grounds surrounded by thick concentrations of trees, perfect for training in secret while also protecting him from winds that may appear whilst he was doing so.
 
Now in a position where he would be capable of training comfortably, he would begin. A look of determination would come into his eyes as if he were about to fight someone with his life on the line. This was because it actually was, as he planned to try to stabilize his transformation to the point that he could withstand the wind, and that required him to actually test it out. Kemuri began his training like any other day of training with his kekkei genkai, turning his body to smoke. His flesh would seem to dissolve as he did this, also almost looking as though he were burning, as smoke was coming from his body as he did so. Once in full smoke form he would simply drift around for a bit, making sure to stay in concentrated areas of trees so that he would not get caught in the wind, as it would be fatal. The cloud of smoke would begin to swirl around in the position it was currently floating in, appearing as though it were a collection of smoke trapped in the wind. The swirling of the ball would begin to pick up speed, almost appearing to become a sort of contained storm, strikingly similar in appearance to ransengan, yet a grey color rather than blue. As the ball began to pick up speed it would also begin to move in seemingly random directions, occasionally bumping into trees, the smoke wrapping around them as it did so. The point of this training was to use the centripetal force of him swirling the smoke around to strengthen his ability to keep the smoke in one single mass. While it may sound like something that isn’t difficult to do, for the Iburi, it’s something that not many learn to do well which inevitably leads to their deaths. Suddenly, whilst Kemuri was doing this training, he would have a sort of flashback, remembering how he had watched several of his childhood friends die in exactly this way. That day was a rather calm one, the wind wasn’t blowing very often, the skies were somewhat cloudy but the blue sky was still very visible as the sun shined upon the Iburi compound. The compound was rather small to be truthful, as the Iburi clan was not one of fame or even slight recognition. This was surprising, given their incredibly useful kekkei genkai if trained to the point that they wouldn’t die from a breeze while using it, which a great deal of the adults in the clan had done. The inside of the compound looked just as any other would, with quite a few buildings inside, most of which for housing, and a decent sized central courtyard. Kemuri and his friends, which will remain unnamed as of now, had snuck out of their homes that day to play outside, like children often do when forced to stay inside for very long periods of time. They were all out in the courtyard playing simple childish games when they decided that they would all try their hands at using their kekkei genkai. Kemuri didn’t partake in this showing of their abilities because he had just recently been caught by his parents doing just that while outside and had gotten into a great deal of trouble for it. His friends had begun to make a sort of tornado with themselves, putting on a quite impressive show to be honest. Unfortunately the show was stopped early as a wind rolled in that blew them apart. No screams, they were simply gone, swept away by the wind as their parents had warned them of if they were to ever go outside. Kemuri simply stared at the spot where they were spinning around earlier, tears welling in his eyes before he stood and rand back into the house where they had all snuck out of, not making a sound the entire time. The next day trees were planted in the compound graveyard to signify their passing. Back to the present, Kemuri, as the ball of smoke still, continued the spinning, picking up in intensity as it did so, eventually to the point that it was starting to make the air around it push outwards. The ball continued to spin like this for several minutes, maintaining it’s position slightly above the ground and between several different trees in all directions. It would then slowly come to a stop, eventually just becoming a cloud of smoke floating in place again. After several moments the smoke would begin to reform into Kemuri, it first forming the shape of a human, then slowly beginning to form a solid mass which took on the same features as him, having the exact same clothing on as well. – Not good enough, - He thought – I’ll have to do much more rigorous training for this to be a success -. Looking around a bit, he would note that training in such safe conditions was no way to actually acquire any sort of useful power. The use of training in a place of much more danger would more than likely greatly assist him, as the threat of death was sure to increase his potential to protect himself from it. He promptly began to leave the area he had taken as his place of training for the day and decided that he would much rather stare into the face of death whilst training, after all, he didn’t exactly have much to lose, and if he couldn’t even minorly stabilize his transformation, how was he supposed to be capable of becoming a great ninja?
 
Once he had walked out of the foliage and into the open training grounds, he would once again watch the surrounding low-ranking ninja do their training as they were likely very often doing. Unwilling to wait any longer to train his smoke form to a higher level, he would immediately transform, puffing into a cloud of smoke that went up into the air about six or seven feet before travelling around the grounds. He was looking for a gust of wind, suicide to most other young members of the Iburi clan, and possibly even to him. He didn’t care at this point though, because there comes a time in every person’s life that they simply won’t tolerate being incapable of doing what they wish to with their lives. For Kemuri, this was his turn. Noting several trees off in the distance beginning to rustle with no ninja nearby, he would quickly identify this as a gust of wind that was travelling towards the main part of the training grounds. –This is it, - He thought to himself, staring at the trees intently. –this is my only chance at becoming stronger. -. Trying to convince himself that he wasn’t going to be harmed by this wind was rather difficult, as it was in fact the thing that so many Iburi before him had faced and died from, including the majority of his childhood friends and even some of his family. It wasn’t long until the wind was upon him, forcing his entire form backwards, further into the training grounds. To everyone else it was a rather dull sight, simply a cloud of smoke being blown by the wind. But to Kemuri this was a matter of life and death, the culmination of what the majority of his training was to combat. He began to spread out, nearly to the point that the smoke was separated in some parts, the separation of the smoke being what kills them whilst they are in their smoke form. It remained like this for nearly a second, almost splitting before it would seem to rebound back into a ball, appearing as though a rubber band about to snap had just been let go of. The gust stopped shortly after this, the smoke seeming to settle where it was. It remained in that position until it began to form a humanoid shape, taking the form of Kemuri once again. He would simply sit down where he was at the time, looking out at the winds rustling the leaves of the trees. The same winds that had plagued so many of his clansmen before him were now of no matter to him in the least, although he would still need to get used to resisting the winds without them carrying him away as they had just done.
 

Still sitting in the spot where he had reformed, Kemuri would begin to think of the possibilities of his new control over the transformation. As several people he knew had displayed, the transformation was not only useful as an evasive technique and could be used to attack others or even be used in supplementary ways. Needless to say, this would drastically increase the usefulness of his transformation, giving him much greater variety in what he would be using it for in and out of battle. Kemuri sat on the ground for a fairly long time, almost thirty minutes, before standing and beginning to make his way back to the exit of the training grounds, walking back to the village and in through the gates. He would walk silently through the streets, thinking still of how this improvement would make him a greater ninja, also still ignoring the street vendors which had tried to get his attention earlier. A few minutes of walking later, he would arrive at his home, walking inside and sitting on his bed straight up, where he would remain for nearly an hour. This was strange to Kemuri; he had been thinking more to himself than he had ever done so before. The thoughts mainly consisted of what he was going to do with this newfound ability to control his transformation; thoughts that others would consider to be rather violent in most cases. It was as if something inside of him had just awoken; something that he would have preferred to have remained in the depths of his mind, untouched by his consciousness. Thinking that he was sure to drive himself mad with these thoughts, he would forcibly put it to a stop by lying down and trying to fall asleep. This did in fact work, as he was somewhat tired from training earlier, but the thoughts persisted until he fell from consciousness, drifting into the world of sleep where he would have a dream of him performing the acts he had been unwillingly thinking of while awake. He did not awaken throughout the night as he usually would when dreams of the like would occur. Instead, he woke in the morning remembering nearly perfectly the events which unfolded in his dreams, him killing all kinds of people for no apparent reason but for one, the amazing sensation he got from doing so. Strangely enough, Kemuri was not even mildly perturbed by this dream, still however thinking it best to suppress the thoughts when they came up though. Upon getting up from his bed, he would put on his clothes like usual and continue on with his day to day actions like nothing had happened the day before.


WC= 2273
Obtained: Smoke transformation mastery level 2, +11 stat points

Approved of appropriate Rewards