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

Kotonaru was surprised by Zebra's progress, but it seemed he had to learn how to properly handle the chakra first.

Kotonaru approached Zebra arefully, lest Zebra lose control. "Hey mate, you might want to make sure you control your chakra carefully first."

Kotonaru demonstrated by generating a small amount of water on his hand, that he moved all over his clothing, attempting to demonstrate some finer sense of chakra control. "Now, I doubt you can do that with the earth element, but you still want a good idea of how to control it. Quantity and power help, but it is nothing unless you can control it properly. Otherwise you will waste a lot of effort. I wish I had been taught the earth element myself so i could help you better, but I think you might want to try something. Try making manipulating small amounts of the dirt, to make intricate shapes. Power and size you can easily get when you train specific jutsu, but the most important thing i have seen so far is to learn fine chakra control. It is all very well to form a massive boulder to smash your opponent, but if you cannot control the movement of the boulder, then it does not help you nearly as much. Besides, some areas of the ninja arts, such as the medical, sealing, space-time, and especially genjutsu specialties, all seem to need some kind of specialized chakra control."

Kotonaru took a deep breath, he had nearly ran out of air while delivering his mini lecture. Then he decided to cap it off a little. "So to put it shortly, you should focus on chakra control, and strengthening your basic elemental nature. Perhaps if you tried forming an intricate pattern out of the dirt on the ground all at oncem that might help a little. Try that out, it might take you a little while."

Kotonaru tried to do the chidori, he was having trouble running the electricity chakra, in great enough quantity. How weird that he had better control over his water chakra. He had a brain wave. He tried running electricity chakra through his foot and shoe, and tried stepping on a stone. The stone split as he was covering the entire contacting surface with lightning chakra. This might be helpful to learn later, but he would need a lot of practice before he would be able to use it properly.

Still, since the feet were the hardest part to exude chakra from, then maybe he should practice some chakra control himself. Maybe the feet were the hardest since they were the farthest from the brain, and the center of chakra production.

(ttl wc: 1723+445 = 2168)

Kotonaru rested for a while, still watching the one man show that was Zebra. The man was unusually taciturn and Kotonaru commented on such. Hopefully the other man would reply to something Kotonaru said. Watching what the other man was doing, Kotonaru noticed something odd. “Dude, if you are training earth element, why are you trying to break rocks? I’m trying to do the same but with lightning chakra. If you are trying to learn the earth element, you need to practice the finer arts fo chakra control, instead of crushing rocks with your bare hands.”

Kotonaru resumed practicing his chidori, he tried swinging the hand he had covered in chakra of the lightning element, through a twig, slowly. At the speed he was going, if the lightning chakra did not work out, then he would end up pushing his way through the twig. However, if it did, the twig would seem to almost fall apart in halfes, as he pushed his hand through it. It certainly helped that he was able to cover the entire leading edge of his hand, as well as up to the middle finger joint, in lightning chakra. Half of his hand was a lot better than none.

Kotonaru was shaken from his reverie by what sounded like Zebra’s stomach rumbling, though he was not quite sure. It could be the badger that looked rather hungry that was crawling along behind Zebra.

Kotonaru was pretty sure most people did not deserve to have a hungry badger taking a large bite out of them, so he jumped to his feet and yelled at Zebra – “Watch out behind you!”. He then tried to use the hidden mist jutsu he had been practicing before, but he was not sure whether it would work properly or not. He tried to form the mist around Zebra, who was hopefully up and off the ground by this time.

Kotonaru picked up a small rock and held it in his left hand, ready to hurl it at the badger if it got too close. He didn’t want to, but he would fire away if the badger got too close. If the badger continued on its way however, he would stop using the mist. The badger’s earction would probably depend on Zebra though, and how he reacted to it. Kotonaru was not too optimistic though, as the other ninja had barely responded to anything Kotonaru did. This was getting on Kotonaru’s nerves as this had been happening with almost all the recent encounters he had had with other ninja in the village. He was itching for a fight to be frank.

From his position he called out to Zebra – “There is a hungry sounding badger looking like it might latch onto your left buttock!!!!!”. If that did not rouse Zebra he did not know what would.

(ttl wc: 473 + 2168 = 2641)

Kotonaru heard the whopper being dropped on the badger and gawped. The cloud that erupted was so thick it had seemed to have physical presence. Coughing and gagging and retching, he backed up quickly and was surprised that the badger had not yet fainted. Then he saw its eyes roll up, it seemed, and the tough little guy keeled over.
He looked at Zebra to see if there was anything left, since that had been… massive. He was not sure whether he would see anything at all, but Zebra looked suspiciously fine. Kotonaru was stunned for a second… “Well, that was rather… immense. Is THAT why you eat all that ramen?”
He was so stunned he even forgot to maintain his attempt at the chidori, which fizzled out on his hand, returning to nothing again. Kotonaru realized this had happened and restarted attempting to run lightning chakra through his hand. This was taking a rather long time, he was getting annoyed. He was surprised again when Zebra calmly sat down some distance from the badger and the small cloud he had emitted, as if nothing had happened. Wow, this guy was rather hard to faze.
Kotonaru approached the other man cautiously and said “Hey, would you like to spar or something? I’m getting a little bored practicing my lightning jutsu. Not that I don’t need the training but….”


(ttl wc: 228+2641=2869)

Zebra barely noticed his fart. He knew this was normal and has knocked out all manner of people with his farts. He would continue to try to add to this rock until eventually it became a boulder. It became heavy enough that Zebra decided to try cutting the rock down slowly. He was laughing slightly when he saw Kotonaru almost faint as Zebra loved seeing the faces. He would do this for fun for a long time simply to annoy people but since this guy was a friend, he decided not to do this intentionally. He eventually managed to get the rock down to an exactly 2 inch diameter ball. He then quickly would do this again. This would take a while still but much less time since he was reasonably good at it. It took so long that eventually, he managed to take about half an hour. This took a huge amount of concentration since it seemed as if the rock was the only thing in his world. He then tried imagining his rock to be a perfect 10 inch sphere and suddenly, the rock changed perfectly. Zebra was happy with his success and asked Kotonaru: How are you doing?

Kotonaru gawped a second time as Zebra started laughing. Ok, that guy had obviously never had table manners beaten into him. He did not seem to mean badly from the nature of his laughing, it seemed happy and carefree, instead of directed and hurtful. Still, someone needed to teach this guy some manners, and Kotonaru was in dire need of exercise. He also needed to train his lightning jutsu though. He could not help wondering, whether his practice attempts at Chidori, if applied to the gas cloud emitted, would create an explosion…. The result might be quite entertaining, though Kotonaru did not want to be too nearby lest there be injuries resulting, either from the explosion, or from any resulting fights. He got more irritated when he saw the other ninja suddenly get a big grin on his face, when he appeared to have achieved a large milestone in his jutsu training. Then he spoke to Kotonaru,the other ninja being polite enough to ask Kotonaru how he as doing.

Kotonaru replied – “Well, ok, not too well though. I’m having a little trouble concentrating enough chakra to perform the Chidori.”

He continued, not really caring whether Zebra was paying attention or not, sometimes he needed to talk to himself, as that act sometimes helped him clear his thoughts up and let him decide what he needed to do next. He rambled on… “The Chidori, have you heard of it? Well, it is at once both incredibly simple, and rather difficult at the same time. Unlike the Rasengan, which has to be finely controlled, as Naruto Uzumaki found out the hard way, the Chidori consists of sending a huge amount of lightning chakra to one’s hand. Its extremely powerful, but also extremely dangerous, as others have often been prone to tunnel training. This is usually only because they did not train enough though.
Ironically, it appears to have been created by a certain Hatake Kakashi, mentor to Uzumaki Naruto, who was unable to get the results he wanted form the Rasengan. Interestingly enough, though this makes complete sence, the Chidori is capable of only electrocuting people, as opposed to cutting them too. I wonder if Kakashi, that scarecrow guy, would have been able to make a lightning version of the Rasengan if he had more chakra and could to it with multiple clones, spamming them like his student. To be honest, this thing takes up a huge amount of chakra, such that the user can often only use it once or twice a day at first. Hopefully I am not that weak but still…..”

Kotonaru gave a heavy sigh, lamenting his own personal weaknesses, mental and physical. Then he continued, only looking at Zebra physically, hopefully Zebra was interested and had not left yet, as it still looked as if Kotonaru was watching the man, even if his eyes were slightly unfocused due to all the gears turning in his head.

Kotonaru continued to drift verbally… at least maintaining a slight connection to the chidori technique. “Hey Zebra, do you know why it is called Chidori? No? Wanna guess?” He did not bother waiting for Zebra to reply, before saying “It is because when used properly, the electricity concentrated in the user’s hand actually makes sound, perhaps that sound could be used for a technique later… Yah, so the jutsu is actually named for the sound it produces. Neat, huh?”

Kotonaru unfocussed slightly, before he got lost in thought again. “It seems the difficult part of the jutsu though is in getting that much lightning chakra out there, into one spot. At least it is on the hands, not the feet, because that would be even harder. It’s like starting a fire without a strong enough fuel, enough oxygen, or enough heat….” Kotonaru paused, still deep in thought. “Oh, that’s it, perhaps to get the jutsu started I need to do a pulse so to speak, I need to flare my chakra in my hand so that I can get the jutsu started, since after that it is only maintaining the form I think That would be quite draining on my chakra though, I probably need to charge up a bit first.”

Kotonaru, still only looking at the spot Zebra had last been in with his eyes, stopped talking suddenly. His eyes were still fixed on that patch of the ground relatively near the badger but he was not registering anything. Someone could probably have pushed him and he would not have noticed, possibly until he hit the ground that was sitting under him.

Silently, Kotonaru grabbed one wrist with the other arm’s hand, partially to support the arm that would attempt the jutsu, partially so it might be easier to send lightning element chakra at it.He remembered reading at the library before that it took quite some effort sometimes to get it started. Grunting, he exerted himself mightily. He sent all the chakra he could at the hand whose wrist he clutched at in the other hand. Building up from a small spark, a blue colored glow surrounded the hand he was attempting the jutsu on. A quiet chirping sound resonated through the training grounds. He got distracted and the glow and sounds shut off, Kotonaru stumbling.

He landed on the ground, face first. Clambering back up to his feet, he looked around wildly for Zebra, eager to show him his progress. “Hey Zebra, where are you! Did you see that! I almost did it! Here, watch me, lets see if I do it correctly this time!” His normally stoic exterior was contorted by an expression of sheer excitement, this was the highest level jutsu he had ever learned, one performed and expanded on many times by great ninjas in the past. He was happy, as he began to feel a little more confident in his abilities. Perhaps the next time he would reach the level the book had explicitly specified to be the Chidori, the level beyond that being the Lightning Cutter, something very few had ever managed to achieve. Hopefully he would be able to later but for now he only had to learn the Chidori and he would be happy, to be completely frank. To be honest, Zebra’s presence mattered little now, he barely did anything and Kotonaru was way deep into his own thoughts.

Kotonaru took a deep breath, exhaling slowly. He build up his chakra and then assumed the same posture as before. Wait… He stopped and decided he would only use one hand, after all, if every time he wanted to use chidori, he needed the same pose, he would be easily found out and countered. He focused his chakra on one hand and flared it again. A strong bright blue glow surrounded his hand, the sound of chirping birds adding to the cacophony surrounding the training grounds.

He easily pushed his hand through the branch of a nearby tree. He laughed wildly, this was going great, he had managed the full blown version of the chidori!

****************************
(ttl wc: 2869+1172=4041)

Kotonaru was rather surprised to see that Zebra was still there after his rather long winded ramble. “Sorry, I guess I got carried away, but at least it seems that I have learned the jutsu sufficiently for now.”

He walked up to a rock and using one hand, activated the Chidori. Man, that thing took a lot of chakra, he could feel his stamina draining away. He could not do this very much at all or he would be too exhausted for further training. He needed to get a better feel for it though as there was another jutsu he was trying to learn. He wanted to learn the jutsu referred to as Chidori Katana. As one might imagine, he needed to take the Chidori and run the condensed lightning element chakra through a blade, or frankly, anything possibly. The lightning chakra would enhance the weapon, making it better for combat. In fact, the jutsu was supposed to have a numbing effect on those it made contact with, this obviously being a property of the lightning element. If the derived jutsu of the Chidori was able to go and numb or partially paralyse someone, then the Chidori should be able to do this too, it seemed. For now though, he needed to make the weapons he wielded stronger, in case he was against a strong opponent.

He tried running the lightning chakra gain, picking up a branch he had cut off from a tree earlier. He had previously thought that running chakra through his feet was hard. No sir, that was easy in comparison. Unlike the explosive tags he had learned to use in the academy, the branch was not at all intended to be used with chakra for ninja related purposes. It felt like he was pushing a large bear with his chakra every time he tried to run lightning chakra through the branch. Obviously either he was too weak, or there was something he was missing.

Kotonaru mentally reviewed the details of the jutsu he had been intending to learn after Chidori. What was he doing wrong that the book had not said or had said to do that he was not doing? After a while he realized that he was trying to infuse chakra into the branch he was carrying, as opposed to running lightning element chakra along the outside. No wonder it was so hard!

Kotonaru sat down for a breather, curious to see how Zebra was doing. He walked over. “How’s it going?” he asked. “Are you getting any better at using the earth element?”

Kotonaru would listen patiently to Zebra Toriko. If the other ninja did not seem to require assistance, then Kotonaru would incline his head, attempting to be polite. Then he would back up several meters and then try to run lightning chakra along the outside of the tree branch. He could possibly test his new application of a jutsu he had only just learned, by swinging the chakra coated branch at another one. If the branches smashed together then he ws not doing it correctly somehow. Perhaps he would not be putting in enough lightning chakra around the branch he was holding. However, if the branch sliced right through the tree branch, then it meant that he was applying enough lightning chakra. He would need to go and buy some weapons to further practice, maybe. Unless he was able to do all this with a rbanch and then some.

(ttl wc: 578+4041=4619