time to hoof it! (i.o., nk)

Kotonaru took a deep breath. He was in his normal garb, which adorned his short frame. He was looking for someone to spar with, hopefully someone would show up. He walked out to the training grounds early in the morning, hopefully someone else would be there for him to train with. He had obtained the 3rd tomoe of the sharingan recently, how he was not quite sure. He was curious to try out his new powers now that he had had a chance to settle down. He really wondered what abilities these might give him.

He walked into the training grounds, but it was deserted. The only souls awake at this hour appeared to be the guards, who had BETTER be awake. Otherwise the village was largely defenseless. He needed something to do to get his blood flowing, while he waited for someone else to arrive. He did not know many people, but it was nice to see a friendly face again.

He began running laps around the training grounds. He was not sre how or why, but his chakra seemed to be fairly strong. Considering he had little stamina and strength, perhaps he had a lot of mental energy. Seriously, if chakra came from a mixture of physical and mental energy, then by process of elimination... well, that explained why he did not seem to need as much sleep as others did.

He finished his 5th lap around the training grounds, as the village seemed to be waking up. The birds too, since they seemed to be chirping to make up for all the time lost during the night. He stopped for a brief drink, and as he walked back into the training grounds, he thought he saw another figure in the distance, though at this distance he could not be quite sure.

Zebra saw this man in the distance and recognized him instantly, this was the man who taught him body flicker. Zebra ran as fast as he could to catch this person and eventually, he quickly used body flicker to crash into him. Now lying on top of this man, Zebra apologized: Sorry man, I just wanted to express gratitude by showing off this jutsu.

Kotonaru saw the other man running up from in the distance. He was surprised to see that Zebra was not still eating ramen, considering how many he had eaten before. He was going to ask if Zebra had finally gotten full, but the man suddenly used the Body-flicker jutsu to smash into Kotonaru.

The man then apologized while making no move to get off of Kotonaru. Kotonaru was rather... speechless for a few long moments. Making an effort not to show any emotion, he replied to the other ninja - "Well, I'm glad you seem able to use it effectively.... You do have a funny way of showing gratitude though.". If he had not been the one hit by Zebra he probably would have thought it was fairly funny looking, if he was completely honest.

If Zebra did not get up himself, Kotonaru would attempt to push the other man off of him, as he was kind of heavy due to all the muscles. Either way, if the other man ended up getting off of Kotonaru, yours truly would stand up and dust himself off. He would then say "So what brings you here this fine day? PErhaps you were here to train too? OR perhaps work up an appetite?"

Zebra was happy that Kotonaru was complimenting him and really did not say much. He got up and brushed himself off as a lot of dust landed on Zebra's clothing. He quickly answered to Kotonaru's question by saying: I am doing training, working up an appetite and wanting to spar with somebody. Zebra would wait for Kotonaru to say something before moving on. He really did wonder what would happen, what he would learn. He was in quite deep thought while in this position.

"Hate to say it but I don't think I can teach you anything else though at the moment. I have a jutsu I want to practice but this will take a little time. Do you have anything you are intending to train? Perhaps we can try stuff out and compare notes. Have you heard of the chidori? That is the jutsu I want to learn at the moment."

Kotonaru would listen to anything Zebra had to say while backing up to practice. He had been to the library earlier and after an interesting read on the tailed beasts, had started reading up on the Chidori. Unlike jutsu such as the rasengan, which were purely chakra constructs, Chidori was a pure nature transformation. Kotonaru wondered what would happen though if he were to make a water version, that might be... interesting.

The first step of the chidori was to run lightning chakra through the hand. The book had said that it could be used to only electrocute people as opposed to only ever cutting, which was nice, it gave the jutsu an alternate usage with water, it seemed.

Kotonaru would listen to anything Zebra said, and watch anything he did, while holding his right wrist with his left hand, running lightning chakra through the right hand. IF he was doing it correctly there should be a, well, electric blue glow emenating from his hand. Hopefully if he tried using the jutsu, he would not get tunnel vision, he had the Sharingan as Sasuke and Kakashi had had, not that he was going to reveal that fact to anyone.

Zebra wondered what he would learn because he thought that he may be able to figure out if he had another element. It seemed to be true that he should learn another element so that he could use his terumi elements of the boil and lava release. Both were very good so thus, Zebra wondered what he liked more. He after a long wonder decided that lava would be better since it was more versatile than the boil. The boil would also be good but he thought that it would be good and it could be learned anyway. He decided to ask the other guy what one would do to learn earth element. "Do you know how to learn Earth Element? I think that using limtus papers, leaves, or making rocks would be the best way to learn a jutsu. I think that making rocks is best but what is your opinion? I can teach you fire element." Zebra would reach into his back pocket to get ready to try on a limtus paper, there were plenty of leaves to pick up and rocks would only need chakra. He decided to teach the other man fire if he could learn earth element.

Kotonaru listened carefully to the other ninja, who seemed reasonably friendly after his rather... weird greeting.

He could reply, slowly, collecting his thoughts while trying to also focus on the incomplete jutsu he was working on with his right hand. "Well, you should probably check that you have the earth element first, to be honest. Say, do you have some of the special paper used to determine elements? I think if you have one element and try to not run that nature of chakra, just the regular one without... fire i guess in your case. I was able to find that I had the water element that way."

Kotonaru let the man continue talking, then he said "Hate to say it, I think I have the fire element too but my chakra seems too weak to sustain a third element as of right now. Hopefully I will be strong enough later, but for now I am going to be working on water and lightning jutsu. It surprises me though that there are no jutsu that use them in tandem with eachother but I can work on that."

He smiled. He tended to relax around this rather straight forward speaking man.

"Looks like I can teach you something after all. Based on what I have seen, if you start off just trying to produce an element of chakra, and then slowly increase the amount you can train the element to a usable amount. Naruto Uzumaki, have you heard of him? He did something like that with wind element. I was able to do something similar with water element. If anything I need to with lightning, my control over it is not very good yet."

He continued trying to run lightning chakra through his hand. He did not seem to have very good control over his lightning chakra yet, as the chakra was scattered and not condensed very much at all. The aura was not even blue. Weird....

Kotonaru was surprised that the other man was quiet for once. Perhaps he had found something to get serious about. He did have a weird aura about him, almost as if he were an entirely different person (ahem). Kotonaru kept trying to intensify the lightning chakra in his hand, while he watched the other ninja attempt to practice the earth element. He was really curious how the guy would do, as this man seemed to be Kotonaru's first ever pupil. Hopefully Kotonaru did not come across like the old rat guy who had been his instructor at the academy, as well as his genin exam proctor. He was getting a little worried about this but it would amount to nothing fortunately. Kotonaru was too young to ever look like that dude.

Watching Zebra, Kotonaru wished he could make this easier, but to do that he would have to have the earth element too. Considering Zebra seemed to be closer to this milestone than Kotonaru, he did not feel he would be much help at all, he could only give advice based on what he had tried with other things. When it came to the practical side, demonstrations as opposed to theories, he was sadly lacking in ability. Earth seemed to be such a useful element, he was sad that he might not be able to obtain it himself. He had heard rumors of the Rinnegan, the most advanced version of the Mangeyko being able to achieve all 5 elements, though these were just rumors and he had never seen it himself. Perhaps the Hokage would know if he asked him.

Kotonaru began to realize that Zebra was totally engrossed in his work, and seemed to have forgotten all about Kotonaru, or frankly, anything else in the entire known world, including ramen, as he had still not said anything. That was ok, Kotonaru needed to do some training himself. He tried concentrating the lightning chakra in his hand to just his fingertips, to try to make a cutting blade. It kind of worked, it was able to slice leaves it turned out. However, When he tried to slice a small rock, slowly and carefully, he found that the cutting blade worked fine still. However, the part of his hand not covered by the makeshift blade got stuck on the rock, it being thicker. It seemed that for Kotonaru to cut properly, all the way through, he needed to be able to extend his puny version of the Chidori. Instead of his miniscule attempt, he had to do the full version so that his entire hand was a cutting surface. Only then would he be able to cut through the rock unhindered. Happy to know what he needed to work on next, Kotonaru continued trying to pump out more lightning chakra.

Looking up again, he saw that Zebra was still focused on his earth chakra training, it seemed he could be at it for hours. Unsure, whether he was being impolite, he did want to break the awkward silence now stretching out before it lasted the entire day. A few minutes after he had last talked to Zebra, about 10 in fact, he decided to do something to break the long silence that made him uncomfortable. Zebra must have something very distracting on his mind if he was still not saying anything all this time. He looked to be someone who said what he thought, normally. Kotonaru stopped running the lightning chakra, as he was starting to feel tired, and walked closer to Zebra, still maintaining a safe distance away in case the other guy managed something unintentional.

“How is it going over there Zebra?” Kotonaru would ask.

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ttl wc so far: 1723 (Mitsui/Zebra, if you want training to go faster try for 400-500 words/post, i know the posts only take you like a minute to type, maybe 3 at most atm lol