Cororsive Mist training (P, NK, Solo)

It was always the same dream, though that night it had been worse, more real.

Den was in a forest, fighting against dozens of masked figures. As he stood on the tree, facing 3 of them, he knew from experience that they would all attack him soon, using jutsu to powerful for Den to block. He had tried so many times to avoid being killed, but no matter how many times he had the dream, memorized the way they attacked him, he couldn’t hit them, nor could he survive the dream. This time though, Eva was with him.

Even though he partially knew this dream, he became afraid. If he couldn’t fight the men, how could Eva?

Then the fight began, the first man did hand seals at a blinding speed then Den watched as a fireball shot towards him. He began doing the seals for Water Snake, he had found that it was sufficient enough to block the jutsu in his last dream, but before he finished the seals a wall made of red crystals shot out from the trunk of the tree Den was standing on, shielding Den and Eva from the attack. Den turned and looked at Eva, and saw that she now had a tail like a red panda, and ears to match. And she was channeling sage chakra. Den was confused, how’d she do that?

“They’re coming.”

It was one of the other figures that broke through the wall, wielding some strange scythe in one hand. Den was not caught off guard however, and already his hand had been altered into a cannon that he brought to bear on the man as he flew towards Den. The blast ripped through the man’s shoulder and exited through his leg, but Den knew the man was not down. No matter what, Den couldn’t kill this man. He didn’t try to block, he just didn’t fall.

Den jumped onto the trunk of the tree to avoid the man’s scythe, and reached for his sword, normally the other one attacked him now. But this dream was completely different from the ones he had before, this time the third went for Eva. She shot some crystal shuriken at him, but he created some spiraling barrier around himself and sent them flying off to the side. Eva barely dodged his attack, moving to the side to avoid his fist from connecting with her jaw. But now she was between the second and the third man, and the first was now jumping towards her. Now was Den’s chance, he could simply cut the branch they were all standing on and they’d all fall, so many kilometers, to their death. But so would Eva.

The Gobi’s voice rang in his head, asking him if he would sacrifice his friends to get an advantage.

By the time the Gobi’s voice had finished however den’s sword had already pierced the skull of the one who didn’t die, and pinned him to the branch. Two shuriken had pierced the first as he flew through the air, he hadn’t paid attention to Den it seemed. The third man however, was sending some blast of chakra towards Eva. Den barely managed to reach and grab her by her collar, and throw her towards the branch the 3 men had stood upon. He watched her fly towards it, glad that he had rescued her from the attack, when it hit him square in the chest. Den’s body was sent flying backwards, and he felt a strange sensation as he hit the trunk of the tree. He didn’t feel… normal. He couldn’t move his legs, nor his arms. His spine was broken, his wound in his chest had also broken his ribs and had actually been larger than he thought, and had ripped his arms to shreds. Already they were growing back, but the third man now stood over Den.

He heard Eva scream out as the man brought Den’s own sword down upon him, aiming at his skull. Then everything went black.

Den shot up in his bed, sweat covering his body. He took 3 heavy breaths as he tried to gather himself. The dark figure standing over Den stood out clearly in his mind, but already most of the dream was becoming obscure. There were random images, a wall of crystal, Eva with a red pandas tail, Den defeating at last one of the men and incapacitating the other. The fear, of Eva being slain, that remained though.

Have that dream again, boy? The Gobi asked, she sounded annoyed, Den waking up had most likely woken her as well. The beast that he had sealed within himself was a irritable one, and Den’s thoughts began to drift towards his day, hoping that he hadn’t just ruined it by upsetting the beast.

Denkiteki got out of bed and immediately went towards the shower. He was still covered in sweat, and wanted to clean up before eating breakfast with his parents. Den had decided to stay with them a few days before heading to Shima, as he could manipulate time within Sanctuary so that the few days he spent were actually no time at all.

Den let the shower run for a minute to let the water heat up, heading back into his room to find one of his many notebooks. There was a stack of them next to his night stand, full of a bunch of his theories and discoveries, which ranged from medical discoveries to theories on space time, to ways to make a jutsu more potent.

Den picked up the notebook at the top of the stack and opened it to the latest page. The book was far less worn than the others, and only had a few dozen pages filled. He looked over the equations he had come up with for his Space Time Barrier, the ratio of ‘solid’ defensive chakra to the corrosive chakra that would be within the barrier. He was trying to figure out the best ratio to make a strong barrier, but also one that could still have a potent corrosive effect.

He read over the last page twice before going back into the bathroom, putting the notebook back on its stack before doing so. His mind kept thinking about ratios though, 1:1 didn’t work because the corrosive chakra couldn’t support the barrier, and it would fall apart. But 2:1 didn’t work well either, the barrier was strong, but had little to no corrosive effect.

As he hopped into the shower he thought about what his other options could be. Should he try 3:2? Obviously it had to be somewhere between his two current ratios, so he might as well start in the middle of them so he’d know which ratio was closer, if that ratio ended up not being correct as well.

Den began to wash his hair as he decided on this plan, wishing that he had been able to stay up the previous night so that he could have finished dealing with the ratio issue then. It hadn’t been a serious problem, beyond having to waste chakra to test each ratio, which in the end had forced Den to retire to his bed room.

It didn’t take long for Den to finish his shower, he didn’t waste any time just sitting in the shower. He would have liked to, but he didn’t want to be late for breakfast, and through Sanctuary he had known his mother was almost finished cooking. He stepped out of the shower and the water on his body seemed to simply disappear, the water had been created via Sanctuary so Den had power over it. A bracelet with three empty facets was on Den, but as he walked out of the bathroom it seemed to grow, becoming an entire outfit in mere moments. Den was wearing a simple red T-shirt and well fitted grey pants. Den was glad he had created the manipulated fabric, he didn’t have to go looking for clothes when he got out of the shower, he just had to envision what he wanted to wear.

Den’s room was on the opposite side of the house from the kitchen. Den had created the house through Sanctuary of course, and had made sure it was was big enough for him, his parents, and Toma. Den could have made a much larger house, but his father was a practical man and he knew his mother would be overwhelmed by a big house, so he made this instead. As he entered the kitchen his mother turned and gave him a soft smile. She was a quiet woman, in his early 40s.

Her and Den hadn’t gotten along well when he was younger, as she hadn’t wanted him to be a shinobi at all. Den felt she still didn’t like the life he lived, but she didn’t try to make him stop anymore. And den was no longer a village shinobi, he hadn’t gone on a dangerous mission or anything in quite some time. She had been worried when Den was first announced a missing ninja, but after Den told her Tengakure hadn’t given his information to other villages she had calmed down significantly.

“So what are you making today?” Den asked a she sat down at the dining table, trying to make conversation with his mother. He didn’t talk to her much as he often didn’t stay in Sanctuary anymore except to do work, and he felt bad for that. He knew his mother cared about him, and felt bad that he didn’t visit her more often.

You feel bad? The selfish boy has a conscience after all. It seemed Gobi was in one of its moods, when it liked to make comments about Den’s life to make him sound like a terrible person, or at least, worse than he really was.

“Just some eggs and bacon, I remember when you were younger you loved bacon.” Back when his mother prepared all of his meals. His mother brought him a plate with a scrambled egg and 3 pieces of bacon on it. It wasn’t much, but Den was rarely hungry in the mornings anyway.

“Thanks.” He gave his mother a smile before looking down at his plate, picking up a piece of bacon and beginning to eat away at it, fat and all. Bacon wasn’t the healthiest of food, but Den enjoyed it anyway. He would make himself a healthy lunch later to make up for it he figured, so he’d enjoy the pieces he had for now.

His mother made herself a plate and sat down across from him, her plate was about as big as his, “Your father is sleeping in this morning I think, he was up all night trying to decipher… Minorin’s letter.” His mother paused for saying the name, because it saddened her to say it, and she knew that the name brought bad memories back for Den as well. Minorin’s mother and Den’s had been good friends after leaving Kiri, and the news of her daughter’s death had devastated the woman.

Den didn’t look up from his plate, he wasn’t sure what tosay. He was starting to accept the fact that Minorin was dead, but he still felt responsible, he hadn’t protected her like he should have. It was similar to how he had wished he had been able to save Kirigakure, but he hadn’t been there, and according to what remained of Suzaku the people who were responsible would have simply slain Denkiteki as well. You will always be too weak to save anyone. You’re a coward that only cares for himself, you’ll never stand and protect those you care about.

Den ignored the beast, and instead responded to his mother, finally, “Did he find anything?” His voice was somewhat quiet however, he was still thinking about how he had been unable to save Minorin. His main desire since her death was to become capable of protecting those he cared about, with a close second being a desire to kill those who ended Minorin’s life. He wanted to make sure these people never harmed anyone else, and part of him felt he would get some sort of personal satisfaction from killing these men. You say you wish to protect people, yet you are making allies so that you can go to war. How are you protecting anyone if you want to kill people? And your allies won’t all survive, even if you somehow manage to succeed, the odds of that happening are unlikely.

Den continued to ignore the beast, instead paying attention to his mother’s response, “He said that some of the symbols, that you both thought were words, he said they were symbols.”

Den looked up from his plate, this was something new. Den had almost given up on using the letter to find out who killed Minorin, he has assumed her hand writing had become illegible and that neither him nor his dad would be able to figure out what she meant. But now, his father had some sort of lead?

“He said they were the symbols of villages. Kumogakure, and Funkagakure.” His mother sounded confused, she wasn’t sure if she had said the names correctly, but she thought she had. Den knew that she had, as he knew about both of those villages, at least somewhat. Funkagakure was a village that become one of the majors after the destruction of Kirigakure, which seemed odd to a few people. Kumogakure was a village Den didn’t know much about, but Tomoya had gone there, and he had met a representative of that village once in Fang Country.

Were these villages involved then? Den would have to find out more about the villages first. He would see if he could convince Tomoya to spy on the village for him, but at the same time he was worried about having the man in a possibly hostile village, he didn’t know if he could trust Tomoya. He hadn’t’ actually created him, he was some weird thing that that was created when he fused with the Gobi. The man seemed to look up to Den though, and wanted to him, so perhaps for now he would follow Den’s orders.

Den wasn’t sure how to find out more about Funkagakure. He knew some villages kept records of others, perhaps he could tryand teleport into Tengakrue and steal some files on Funkagkure? It would be risky, due to the time it took for Den to teleport. Den’s thoughts drifted to his Mangekyou in his lab, he knew what his right eye could do, even if he had never learned the technique. Perhaps he could use that, if he did there was a good chance he could succeed in getting in and out of Tengakure quickly if he needed to.

Having a lead inspired Den, he could now devote activities towards these two villages, rather than searching randomly and without any real purpose.

Den felt himself get pulled iinto his inner world, where the beast resided. You’re gonna get yourself killed boy, you can’t fight these people. The beast didn’t sound as antagonizing as before, almost concerned this time when she spoke.

Then I’ll become stronger.

Den would spend some time training this day he decided, and would try and acquire some new knowledge that might increase his abilities. He was almost done with his barrier jutsu, once that was done he’d have another defensive technique that he could use. Then he could try and apply the corrosive chakra to other techniques.

That won’t be enough The beast was angry, like she usually would be, when Den tried to find ways to become powerful enough to fight these unknown threats.

If it wouldn’t be enough, then perhaps he would have to conquer the Gobi. Take her chakra in the same way as Naruto had taken the kyuubi’s.

If you try it, I will kill you.

Just like the first time we fought?

Den felt the beast seethe in rage, could see it happening within the beasts cage, which prompted Den to smile in his inner world. He knew that he could defeat the beast again, but it would be difficult without more jutsu. The Gobi knew many of his tricks now, he needed abilities that would be powerful enough to defeat the Gobi even if she knew what the jutsu could do. That would be his personal goal for now, to defeat the Gobi and take her chakra, then he would possibly travel to village she was allied with, or Tengakure if he had too, in order to get more information on Funkagakure. He knew Tengakure had files on two powerful Funka nin, he might need those.

Den heard a noise, and his eyes opened in the real world. It was his mother, asking what he was thinking.

“You’re not going to go after these villages are you?” his mother sounded worried, which Den understood, better than he had when he was younger. She didn’t want him to get hurt or die, and he had been hurt plenty of times, and nearly killed as well.

“I’m going to find the men within those villages who are responsible, and I am going to ensure they don’t try and hunt down anyone again.” Den’s eyes seemed determined, so much so that his mother almost gave up any hope of trying to dissuade him, but he was her son.

“Please don’t. You’re already a missing ninja, you shouldn’t go fighting people. Why can’t you just continue making inventions, and settle down somewhere? So many villages have liked you, requested your help. Why don’t you help them, rather than try to avenge your friend? She’s not going to come back, if you fight these people it’s just gonna end in more suffering!” Den’s eyes widened as his mother spoke, she had never said this much to him at once. And he didn’t know how to respond, he knew in a sense his mother was right. Minorin wouldn’t come back, or rest more easily if he killed these men. But he had to make sure these men didn’t hurt anyone else, and even if it didn’t bring Min back, he still wanted these men to be punished for killing his friend.

“I can’t let people like them walk this world, hurting other people mother.” He felt obligated, he was a powerful being. He should use his power to protect people, and in his mind by avenging Minorin he would be protecting others from these men who had so ruthlessly slain her, “I’m not a little boy anymore. I was Tenkage, I swore to protect the people of the village with my life. I didn’t save Min, so the best I can do is find those who killed her and ensure they don’t harm anyone else.”

Den’s mother looked at him a moment, before returning to her own meal. Den felt terrible, he knew his mother wanted him to be safe, but he wasn’t a young child anymore. He was a young man, and a powerful shinobi. He was the Jinchuuriki of the five tails now as well, one of the 9 beasts left to this world by the Sage. These things made Den feel obligated to try and make the world a better place, and if it meant he could avenge his friend as well, he was glad to do it.

Den finished his plate and looked up to his mother once more, “I’m going to go train. I’ll probably be back later tonight.” His mother didn’t look up though, she just continued to eat. Den frowned as he watched her for a moment, saddened that he didn’t have a closer relationship with his mother. Deciding not to dwell on it for now, Den would disappear from his home, utilizing his power over Sanctuary Den could teleport freely within it.

Den appeared in a large open area, his notes in his hands. Den’s thoughts were still with his mother and how terrible he felt for making her worry about him, but he knew this was something he had to do. He was a powerful shinobi, and a jinchuriki, he couldn’t just walk away from the world and not try to help it. He had to keep training, keep becoming stronger, until he was capable enough to fight the men who killed Minorin.

Den began to go over what he believed would be the correct hand seals for his new technique, he only wanted there to be a few, he didn’t want his jutsu to turn out like the water dragon technique and require a ridiculous a ridiculous number of seals that would be hard to perform in the middle of a fight. Indeed, he wanted his barrier to be strong, durable, but to be entirely honest he didn’t really feel like working on it that day. So he began flipping through his notes, trying to find older ideas he could work with.

He found an old jutsu idea, a way to harm an opponent’s body via a number of different applications. He hadn’t found a way for it to work before though, indeed he had scratched the diea fairly early. But then Den began to think, if he applied the corroding chakra from the barrier tech he was working on, and altered it enough to affect flesh…. It could work.

Den began to do calculations, trying to see if these corrosive chakra could be controlled well enough to form projectiles, or hang in a cloud. Indeed, this jutsu idea seemed far simpler than that of his barrier, as he didn’t need to build chakra to also be strong in order to create a wall, he merely had to send the chakra out and try to hit his target. It could be a useful jutsu, capable of crippling, or even killing an opponent if they were weak enough. By Den’s calculations actually, the jutsu would kill a normal person quite easily.

It wasn’t long before Den began testing the jutsu, trying to send force this new mist from his hands, mouth, and even his entire body. At first he had some difficulties, but that was to be expected as he was making a new jutsu. It was difficult for him to figure out how many hand seals he would need for the technique, but he slowly began to realize it would take a few, just because of the sheer number of options he wanted towards accessing the jutsus effects.

In the end, Den found he needed 6 hand seals for the jutsu. Well, once he fully understood the jutsu he could probably reduce the amount but he could tell normally it would require that many hand seals in order to be used.

After practicing for a few hours den was able to move the corrosive mist around his body via 3 methods. He could make it shoot forth form his hands, his mouth, or from his entire body. He also could choose to have it be a cone, projectile, or just a mass area of effect jutsu with him at the center. So far he could also tell that he was immune to its effects, and that the jutsu was quite flammable. He also thought maybe he could combine the jutsu with water techniques or other jutsu, but he wasn’t sure yet.

Indeed, as Den decided that he was done training for a bit, he was sure he had learned the jutsu well enough to be able to perform it in combat, with 3 hand seals rather than 6 like he originally thought. Of course, he still thought most people would require 6 if he taught it to them, but the jutsu was partially med based so he didn’t think he would teach anyone the jutsu anytime soon. Deciding it was time to head home, Den teleported back, wondering if he would be in time for lunch or something, rather than having to make it himself.

WC: 4006
Corrosive Mist Learned
2k ryo obtained.

Sure, you seem cool, approved.