just a little training... :( tags below

Kotonaru got up in the early morning. The sun had not risen yet, but the village streets were bustling. They were mostly filled with people stumbling around, bleary eyed, and barely conscious, off to open a shop, do some training, report for duty, or some other… more illicit activity. He had a pretty good idea of what happened when important others were away but he seriously preferred not to think about it too much. He had accidentally found someone doing such in an alley once, and had quickly turned away, while they scrambled for cover, their cheeks flaming red.
He changed out of his sleep wear, which was almost nothing, and then started putting on his ninja outfit. This took a while, as he had left his gear on his bed, having collapsed onto the bed just after changing, the night before. Fortunately, the clothing was fairly clean still, with all the jutsu he intended to learn today he would not have much time…. Other than a few minutes with a needle, repairing a torn sleeve, the time spent putting on his ninja gear was largely without incident, the only other exception being an elderly, most venerably energy bar, that he found in one of his back pockets. So that was the lump he had never bothered to check in his pants pocket. Well, with the old energy bar gone that lump should no longer be there. His clothing repaired and in good shape, he walked into the shower. Some time and a lot of bad singing later, he stepped out, his short hair drying quickly. Throwing on his ninja gear the second time this morning (why did he bother wearing it in the first place if he was going to take it off a nanosecond later to have a shower?), he walked downstairs.

The small cozy room that greeted his eyes was fairly nondescript. He had not earned a lot of money from the odd jobs he had done while training to be a ninja, so he did not have anything fancy. He did not have much that was decent either, but this was not because he bought old stuff on the verge of falling apart. Rather, it was because his stuff had aged rather nicely, what he had bought, and that itself was not much. The room was filled with not a lot of furniture, the rather Spartan appearance disrupted by a rather brightly colored painting on one wall. Otherwise, there was nothing interesting in the room, which was adorned with a table, some chairs, a couch, a small television, that was about it… except for the floor cushion thingy, yeah, the beanbag. Other than that, the downstairs bit of his apartment was empty. He did not need much else; if he needed entertainment he would go to the training grounds, where something interesting was sure to happen.

Kotonaru washed his hands and prepared himself some porridge. He liked porridge because it was warm, yielding, gentle, and rather quiet, some qualities of which you would not notice when you first ate it, rather like the guy consuming it. It didn’t hurt that it was also extremely inexpensive. That Kotonaru was also. He wished sometimes he stood out more, as aside from the silly episode at the genin exams, he had never been anything much of a class clown. He was just not a real talker. Not that he was antisocial, just that he liked to sit back and watch the more interesting people talk in the middle of social circles. He was not the memorable type, which did help him avoid conflict more than with others.

Gulping down his porridge, Kotonaru quickly thought over his plans for the day. He had heard rumors of a training session undergone by another genin, a guy of the Nara clan he thought. This guy was way more interesting than Kotonaru, whom some suspected had been conceived entirely by accident, or in a rush to overpopulate the Konoha branch of the Uchiha clan. This other guy had spiky hair, Kotonaru was pretty sure he had bumped into that guy on the way into the library. That other guy had longish hair like most of his clan but which was spiky while Kotonaru had short nondescript hair. That other guy, whose name he had not heard, had apparently once gone undergone some crazy long training day. Word was it, based on reports from various people, that this other guy had done training Rock Lee might have been proud of. He had come up with a lot of crazy exercises, even making his own bucket, and by the end of the day, had managed to learn quite a few high level jutsu apparently. This could hardly be considered snooping on Kotonaru’s part, as other ninjas had noticed the sudden increase in the Nara clan member’s repertoire.  He had done some really weird stuff but in the end he had gotten much stronger, rather quickly. He was not even from a well known elite clan, like Kotonaru himself was. If that guy could improve so quickly with some hard work through the day, and most of the night it seemed, then Kotonaru could surely improve quickly too with some hard work. He decided that he would learn a whole bunch of techniques through the day as opposed to just a mere handful in one day. Ok, ok, he had to admit it, a handful of higher level techniques learned in one day, was pretty good, but he, Kotonaru Uchi- no, Haruto, he reminded himself, was going to surpass that. He would attempt to learn as many jutsu as he could in one day, without rest.

He finished his porridge, and washed the dishes. He quickly thought over his plans for the day. Last time he had found that he had the water element, and it seemed he would be unable to obtain another element for the time being – his chakra was too weak to even consider trying for another element, assuming he would ever have it in him. But for now, he needed immediate power, that could help him right the wrongs exacted by the uchiha in the past.

Kotonaru got impatient of sitting in his apartment and dashed outside. There were lots of jutsu he intended to learn. He would also practice using his eyes. Ever since that last mission he had done, all the jutsu he did not know, hurt him emotionally, because he had been so weak he had been the only survivor of his expedition sent out to track down the killers of a small squad of 3 genin. His eyes had been the only thing that had saved him from the same fate, helping him to kill a number of missing ninjas. Unfortunately the kage had not noticed his achievements, and Kotonaru was still a genin. It made sense though for him to remain at this rank for the time being since… he was very weak in the land of ninjas. Hopefully that would change later.

Kotonaru ran through the streets. He was intending to exercise later so he decided he might as well start practicing now. As he ran through the village, he decided to run on the walls and the undersides of outdoor ceilings, instead of on the ground. Fast battlefield navigation might be something he could pick up quickly that might be helpful later on. He had to practice it though, so now would not be a bad time. He ran through the village, jumping between walls and sometimes running straight up and over dead ends in alley ways. He did end up getting to his destination in about the same amount of time as it would have taken him otherwise, as his normal route would take him through some open areas. As he was running around instead on the undersides of the roof tops and around the sides of buildings, sometimes he had to take a detour to get to the same spot before being able to resume his journey. The only incident of note, was when he ran around a corner and bumped smack into a different ninja who had been using the same type of route as he did. Both of them had lost their grip on the walls, falling down to land on the ground with a thud. The other ninja had been looking like he might go for a fight but Kotonaru had managed to find some humor in the situation and the fight had been avoided. This was lucky for him as he normally had trouble making jokes, and he did not have much time to spare that day if he was going to learn all of those jutsu.

Kotonaru walked into the library. He walked up and down the aisles, grabbing all the books that seemed useful at once. His arms full, he stumbled through the library to a quiet corner. He was glared at by quite the number of people but he did not care. The librarians were probably annoyed that he had taken so many books at once. The other ninja were probably annoyed that he might be trying to get a leg up on them. The patrons who were not ninjas probably thought he looked a little odd. He did not care to be honest. He was doing this, he was taking all these books for just one day, so that he could hopefully do a better job protecting all these people. After all he did not want to lose any more people like he had already when he had last done a mission. He needed to train his eyes, they needed to get stronger too, and they were the only thing that had kept him alive before. In comparison the jutsu he knew were rather useless it seemed. He would have to fix that since no matter how strong his eyes were, if he lost them, he would be entirely helpless. This would not be good.

He walked off to a quiet part of the library, away from prying eyes, and began poring over books. He wanted to try to learn the theory first, before attempting any of these, otherwise, if he did not know what he was doing, he might have more trouble than was truly necessary, wasting some of his valuable time. Time was not a luxury he could afford to spend freely, that mission had turned disastrous rather quickly, and he did not have a jounin or even a chuunin helping him improve his skills. No sir, the improvement would have to come from this young fellow, by himself.

He took a moment to sort through the massive pile of jutsu teaching books, so that the simplest and lowest rank ones were at the bottom. There was no sense in struggling to learn a high level jutsu without first mastering the basics with a lower level one. Kotonaru got the pile sorted out after a little while. He was first going to learn some really low level jutsus, the first on the pile was the water replacement jutsu. After that, he was going to learn, or at least read up on the hidden mist jutsu. After that he would move up to the C rank jutsu, attempting to learn the Hiding in water, Water clone, Water needles, Water prison. So far the useful jutsu seemed to be of the water type. Moving up a rank again, he would learn the Art of the Raging Lion’s Mane, the Stormy Blockade, 1000 needles of death, and the 5 feeding sharks jutsus. Still such an emphasis on Water jutsu.He would have tried to learn the B rank lightning jutsu too but reading it carefully he learned he needed a different jutsu first, in fact, an A rank. Speaking of which, for the A ranks, he was going to learn the Hiding with Camoflauge technique, even attempting to learn the null version, perhaps in one sitting. He was also going to learn the Chidori, followed by the B rank Chidori Katana. He was also going to learn the Lightning Clone jutsu, and then a Water Jet jutsu, and a sphere thingy made of water that could smack things with tentacles, or so he assumed.

The first jutsu up was the water replacement jutsu. Kotonaru could not quite fathom why such a jutsu would be created if there was the substitution jutsu already. Then it occurred to him – this would be useful around water, which was going to be rather hard to use for the normal substitution jutsu. So that was why that jutsu existed. Kotonaru read through the stuff but it seemed pretty simple. You use your chakra to move some water nearby, giving others the illusion that it is you. That couldn’t be so hard right?

Kotonaru found that it was noticeably harder to control water he himself did not create. He also found that distance played a rather large role in this too, as the closer the water was the easier the jutsu became. Of course he practiced this in the only convenient spot possible – the bathroom. He turned on the tap, and, standing next to the sink he was using, used water to project an image of himself onto it. This one seemed fairly easy to learn, in fact. It did not take long for him to learn it. In fact, someone else came into the bathroom while he was practicing. It did not take long at all for him to be able to use the jutsu proficiently, at all. When the other person walked into the bathroom, Kotonaru was giving the illusion that he was looking at them. The other boy stopped, surprised, as Kotonaru was silently staring at him. The other boy was even more surprised when Kotonaru dissolved it seemed, melting into a puddle. Then Kotonaru poked his head out from around the corner and explained he had been practicing something. It took a while to convince the other boy and Kotonaru had to show him the jutsu he had been practicing, several times, before the other boy seemed to believe him. The other guy still left muttering about nuts who happened to be practicing in the bathroom.

Kotonaru washed his hands, and used a paper towel to hold the door handle.Then he opened the door. He walked back into the main bit of the library, and located his stack of books. He pored over the book for the water replacement technique. He wanted to make sure he was doing the jutsu correctly. Indeed, he apparently was. On to the next jutsu. Kotonaru began reading up about the mist technique. It seemed that the user formed mist. Simple. The water either came from the user directly, or the user used their chakra to manipulate preexisting water, turning that into a mist instead.

Kotonaru put the first book he had been reading back, the one about the water replacement jutsu. He walked back into the bathroom. Manipulating his water chakra, he attempted to make a mist. Focusing intently, it took him a number of tries to make any noticeable mist. He had to not just make water chakra but water in a different form from normal. This seemed to make things much more difficult. Kotonaru figured he should make the basic version using his own water first. He tried running water nature chakra through his entire body. Ever since his water training some time ago he had slowly found this simple act to become easier, and easier. However, at this point it still did not feel entirely natural, perhaps because he was actually an Uchiha, whatever his used name may be, and this probably conflicted with the fire element he likely also had somewhere, deep down inside him. Kotonaru tried it again, running water chakra through his body. From there, he extended his chakra out, trying to change it into more of a mist like form. Slowly, the mist began to form from the water Kotonaru was producing. The mst began to form, and Kotonaru tried to center the growing cloud on himself. Eventually he stopped, when the mist filled the room, and he tried to clear it out, opening the door. Mist slowly rolled out into the hallway, fortunately nobody was there to see it. When the bathroom was clear again, Kotonaru noticed there was a fan that vented outside, sitting in the bathroom, next to the light switch. Next time he made the mist he would use that to clear the room instead. He tried it a couple of times, turning on and off the fan. Then he practiced making the mist a couple more times. Then he walked into the library again, to check the book to make sure he was doing everything correctly.

Having satisfied his own curiosity about the technique he was attempting to make his, he went back to the bathroom, not noticing the feet under one of the stalls. Kotonaru turned on the tap and then stood by the door, next to the fan switch. He then tried using the jutsu again, attempting to use the water from the tap to form mist. It was surprisingly easy now that he had done it several times. The mist flowed from the tap quickly, but he he stopped the jutsu, not happy with his progress. He gave it one last try, attempting to form mist out of the air itself. This was a lot harder than it looked. As there was only a small amount of water in the air he would have to use his chakra to increase that amount, then changing it into mist form. It took several tries, as Kotonaru was not used to having to exert himself that much. Especially since the jutsu was supposed to at maximum reach 25 meters, at the basic form. It did point out that more skilled users were able to increase the range, but this probably required more chakra than Kotonaru had on him at the moment. For now he would probably be stuck at 25 meters, which was fortunately a still useful range. He tried the jutsu again, surging his chakra forth like a lion, whatever that mythical beast was, roaring at the gazelles it pursued. He was not sure what gazelles were either but Kotonaru was sure it was some kind of metaphor. His latest attempt went rather well. The mist formed quickly from the air around him, becoming thick and opaque startlingly quickly. It surprised Kotonaru who was expecting something interesting. The guy in the bathroom though, obviously had not at all. A lot of very interesting screeching occurred as Kotonaru turned on the fan, slowly sucking away the fog. He guessed he had caught a civilian with his pants down, literally. Of course he had not intended too but still, it was kind of funny. Kotonaru fled after switching the fan on, stifling his laughter until he was well away from the door. He did not want ot get in trouble after all.

Kotonaru decided to leave the bathroom alone for a while, while the fog cleared away. He sat down, picked up the book on the mist producing jutsu, and put it away. He earned a disapproving glare from the librarian nearest by, who commanded that he instead place it on a cart for reshelving, even though he knew where the book came from. He put the book there as requested and sat down to crack open the next book. He scanned the contents of the book. He read first through the contents, then, just to make sure he would understand everything, looked at the index and glossary as well. There was an appendix too but he did not feel he had read enough of the book to thoroughly understand whatever the author might talk about in those sections, so he instead skipped back to the introduction and began reading. The jutsu he was currently trying to learn was the hiding in water technique. It sounded like a lot of other hiding techniques, in that the user was able to hide within some element. In this case it was water, the user would be able to hide within, being largely undetectable. However, it seemed that the user might be quite noticeable if they were to come out of the water they were hiding in. Kotonaru was a little befuddled though, as to how a user would be able to hide within a puddle. Well, he might see why if he were to practice the jutsu himself. Kotonaru had a quick drink of water and walked back to the bathroom. A few traces of the mist from earlier were still around, drifting through the hallways before dissipating. As he turned the last corner before the bathrooms, he saw a man burst out of the bathroom, cursing about all the mist that had been put there by some joker with no manners, interrupting the man’s nap. Kotonaru suppressed his emotions until the man was gone. Walking into the bathroom it seemed that the fan had done its job, and in fact the mist was now all gone. Kotonaru looked around for something to hide in and decided that he would rather not do such with the toilets….

Wallking back to the library, he went and checked out the stack of books remaining, large pamphlets depending on how you looked at them. All 14 of them. He dropped most of the books off at the library and changed into a bathing suit. He walked over to the nearest swimming pool, and took off his shirt. Standing on the water, he attempted to use his chakra to pull the water around himself and conceal his presence. He did not expect the jutsu to work on the first try. He certainly did not expect it to work so well that someone swam right into his location, not noticing him at all. When he surfaced he could barely contain his laughter, the other person though, she was not amused, and he stopped laughing when she smashed a clean hole in a 10 foot thick concrete block. He was pretty certain her strength was on par with that of the kage, no way was he going to mess with that person. He wondered what hijinks he might be able to get to with this jutsu, but now was not the time. He had learned 3 jutsu so far, and he had many more to go.

He stopped by the library to return a book and then swung by his home to pick up a bucket and a couple more books, 13 left in total. He was going to learn the water clone jutsu, then the water needles and the water prison jutsus. Perhaps he could practice the water prison on his water clone, though he wondered what would happen if that were to be the case. Would the water clone merge with his water prison? Would this only happen if he released his chakra for one of the jutsus? He was not sure, but was curious to find out. For now, he wanted to learn the water clone jutsu.

This should be reasonably simple. He walked to a nearby river, and filled his bucket with the clean water. He was thirsty so he took a drink. Then he remembered he could make some water already by himself so he did that. He sated his thirst and then stood by the river. He checked the handseals, and then performed them, one at a time. HE used them to guide his chakra which he put into some of the river water, pulling it out from the river’s flow and forming it into his likeness. It worked quite well. The clone formed, and Kotonaru had a bright idea. He could spar with his clone. This worked until Kotonaru landed a punch on the clone, which then dissipated into water again. Kotonaru was surprised the clone was not tougher but then it occurred to him that the clone jutsu was pretty low, a C rank if he recalled correctly, so it was not so surprising after all. Kotonaru was satisfied that he had learned this jutsu sufficiently so he stopped to go and take a break.

He was idling around, lazing about on the river bank, when it occurred to him that he could practice sparring more against his water clones. This intrigued him. He walked onto the water surface and made a bunch of water clones. He commanded one of the water clones to attack him. Kotonaru found he was a little faster than his clones, so he had no trouble dodging the clone. As the clone attacked, Kotonaru dropped to the ground, supporting himself on one leg and a hand, kicking the clone between the legs. The clone dispersed, leaving Kotonaru surrounded by more clones and a very wet shoe. Drying it off, Kotonaru tried to think about how he could use the multitude of weak clones to his advantage. He realized that he could use the clones to practice fighting multiple opponents. They were not strong clones but it would be a start. If he got good at it he might be able to handle multiple actual opponents, unlike his sorry performance during that disastrous mission.

Kotonaru beckoned, and the water clones surrounded him. If he was going to practice fighting a multitude of opponents then he should start off with something easier first. With his 3 tomoe Sharingan, which nobody else would see or know about, due to his private training, he would be able to practice at full power against a lot of opponents. Kotonaru was pretty sure though that attacking clones violated human rights conventions but he was not sure to be completely honest.At least they could only be temporary at best but he did not like to think about the implications of killing of an entire living being. At least these were not the permanent clones he had to fight to get stronger. Kotonaru activated the Sharingan. All three of those hard and painfully earned tomoe swirled into view of the water based bystanders, slowly circling eachother in the morning light. He slowly looked around him, taking in the positions of all the clones at once. He would be foolish to fight them al at once, but on the battlefield he would not necessarily be able to go and lead them all down an alley where he could potentially attack a multitude of them at once while they could only attack him a few at a time, in the cramped confines between buildings.

Kotonaru tried to use his peripheral vision, constantly turning his head to get a better idea of where the clones all were. He landed a couple of punches, disintegrating some clones back into water, but then he felt one of the clones holding his watery finger to the back of Kotonaru’s head. That was the game up huh. Kotonaru cursed. It seemed like it was rather important to not be surrounded, or at least constantly in extremely fast motion. Otherwise he would be surrounded and easily subdued. If that clone had had a weapon Kotonaru might have been finished already. Kotonaru got the clones to attack him from all sides again. If he was potentially going to be surrounded by enemies later on he had to be able to escape. He wished he had discovered the earth element, as he had seen someone digging through the ground before. Unfortunately Kotonaru did not have that luxury. He made handsigns, then he formed a pair of clones, switching places with one of them within the poof of smoke that had appeared. He and the clones charged one side of the surrounding formation of water clones, splitting up so they would not all be hit at the same time by any ninjutsu. He was not entirely sure of the capabilities of the clones, the water ones, but they seemed to be ponderously slow. Still, it did not pay off to be careless. Kotonaru and clones charged, all of them ducking and dodging so that the insubstantial clones would not be exposed. Kotonaru charged through the line and managed to clear out of the clones. Now he could get the party started. He really needed to make a jutsu though that could help him defend his back, as it would be hard to escape that many in a true fight. Now being on the outside, it was a simple matter for Kotonaru to charge through the clones, not bothering to hold his insubstantial clones anymore. He just had to not let any of the water clones get behind him, this meant attacking each of the clones that got near him viciously, sometimes chasing down stragglers who were on the outside and attempting to get his back. Fortunately none of the clones were particularly strong.
Kotonaru finished wiping out the water clones. He really needed a breather. The sun had not risen yet and he was already extremely hungry.

(to be continued?)
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ttl wc: 4851
claiming +24 stats
1000 words towards learning water replacement jutsu
1000 words towards learning the hidden mist jutsu
2000 words towards learning the hiding in water jutsu
851 words towards learning the water clone jutsu

bumpity ^_^

Looks good, approved