The Naive Student's Lesson [Training, Solo]

Risa had yawned softly as she stood from her bed, rubbing the sleep from one of her eyes as she moved over to her dresser and began to clothe herself, straightening out her dress a bit as she finished putting it on before then looking in the mirror, smiling warmly to her reflection as she said aloud: "Today, you're going to do it - Today, you'll get ready to beat those exams!" referring to the Genin exams which she would have to take to graduate the Academy, something which she was very keen on doing soon as she had been trying to learn the two necessary jutsu - Clone and Transformation - endlessly to no avail, up until now, today she felt would be the day that she would finally overcome all of the failures and hardship, today she made a promise to herself to not return home until she learned both jutsu to a fault and she kept her promises, even if they were internal.

With that in mind, she quickly moved out of her room and waved to her parents as she left her rather nice home within the inner part of Kumogakure village, moving off toward the not too distant Training Grounds which the shinobi of the village used to hone their skills, Risa being no exception. She made her way to a barren area of the Training Grounds as she noted that it seemed rather devoid of others today, in-fact she noted further that at this moment she was the only one present, though she took this as a blessing seeing as it would allow her to concentrate fully on her training rather than talking to strangers as she was ought to do when others were around, liking to just visit with others and hear what they had to say or to help brighten their days, today would be the day she could finally devote this time to herself.

Performing the necessary seals, Risa would begin by first performing the Clone Technique, concentrating deeply as she closed her eyes as she recalled the many times before that she had attempted to perform the technique: The first time that she had attempted to do so, she only managed to cause a faint wisp of an image of herself to appear for a brief moment before it faded away and left no trace behind, being a rather all-around disappointment. The second time that she had attempted the technique she had managed to create only a single clone that moved for a short time with herself before it faded away into nothingness. The third time mirrored the second, and so did the fourth. By then, however, Risa had begun to be frustrated at her own lack of ability to move forward with the technique and nearly gave up, until recently when she began to tell herself that if she just put her mind to it, that she would be able to accomplish anything, even this. This would be the fifth and hopefully final time that she would have to attempt this, before finally at least getting something right.

Risa opened her eyes, finding to her surprise that she had indeed managed to create two clones - although a bit unsteady in their image - of herself, testing this further by then moving around as the clones would mimic her actions. She smiled brightly as she exclaimed: "It actually worked!" before then beginning to move forward as the clones did the same, then performing a stage bow as if she were doing so in-front of a crowd as she allowed for the clones to dissipate. She basked for a long few moments in the afterglow of finally accomplishing one of the hardest things that she had ever had to do up until this point in her life before she then realized that there was yet another technique she had to do, one that she had a lot less success in, mostly due to the fact it was considered to be even more difficult than the Clone Technique since, at least from what she was told in class, it required one to constantly emit chakra and to keep the form required absolute concentration, something that she would admit was not her forté

The second technique she would have to learn would be the Transformation Technique, which from what she recalled served mostly as a way to disguise oneself and infiltrate enemies, or - as many of the other classmates of hers had pointed out - was an excellent way to prank a friend, or to get out of trouble by transforming into their senseis and making excuses for themselves. While she really had no need for either of those two things, Risa knew that this technique was required to pass the academy and so she knew that she had to do it one way or another, so why not now? 

Mentally preparing herself, Risa began to take deep breaths and cleared her mind of all but a singular image, that of the person she wanted to transform into: It was an image she had seen in her dreams a lot, so she figured it was worth a shot to try using it as a base to transform to: She imagined a woman with beautiful long blonde hair and brilliant green eyes that shone brightly in the sunlight yet seemed to Risa to be like the ocean, deep and mysterious holding so many things that she could only hope to ever understand. The woman's skin was pale and had many scars littering it, yet something about it calmed the young academy student and seemed to give her hope, as if every scar was merely a reminder of the price of good and that sometimes you had to get hurt in order to stop others from doing the same. Lastly she imagined the clothing that this woman wore, being a long blue dress with white trim, the skirt from which flowed all the way to her ankles, where it stopped and allowed for her to move around freely. 

With the image of the woman she wanted to transform into in mind, Risa closed her eyes and once more a flood of her past failures ran by quickly, as if reminding her that she was definitely not perfect: The first time that she had attempted this technique, Risa had managed to imitate her sensei's male body, but other than that was completely off in her proportions and made the man look very fat and with a big nose, something which caught her a bit of derision, though she continued to try in spite of that. The second time, she had managed to make the form a bit more anatomically true to her envisioned target, but this time she was not able to hold the form for longer than a few seconds, as she hadn't the chakra to keep it up. The third and forth times were much the same, in that she could not keep her chakra focused enough to keep the form for any longer than a few seconds and even then they were somewhat off, but she would try just like she had with the Clone Technique and hopefully be able to finally get the hang of it, or at least keep it for a little longer. 

Opening her eyes, Risa took a deep breath and raised her hand to her eyes to examine it and noticed with a soft gasp that she had actually managed to imitate the form she had saw in her dreams, smiling brightly she then began to move around and touch nearby trees, testing the limits of her own exertion as she noted to her glee that she was able to keep the form now without losing it, her chakra having improved significantly since the first time that she had tried the technique, finally having enough reserves to be able to keep this form for at least a little while without repercussions, or at least without making herself pass out from the loss of chakra.

With a deep and satisfied sigh, Risa would then drop the transformation and look at her surroundings, at the few trees and barren ground that littered the area and then finally to the bright blue sky, with the sun shining in the distance as she noted happily to herself that today seemed like it was going to be the day when things finally started moving and that she would soon be able to become a part of the huge world of shinobi, to explore lands far and wide and see what they had to offer. 

As she was thinking this however, an eerily dark voice that reminded her of some sort of snake sounded out within her mind, causing her to shiver deeply as it spoke: "Soon, Risa - You will be ready to become one of my followers, strong enough to serve the Darkness faithfully just like my Wielder." She contemplated responding to the mysterious voice, but upon further thought she had simply decided to shake her head and quickly returned to her home, where she greeted her parents and began telling them all about her training and even went so far as to demonstrate her techniques to their applause and warm smiles. She gave them both a hug before then moving into her own room where she laid down on her bed and yawned, stretching out. She did not intend to actually sleep the whole day away, but something about that voice she heard before in the Training Grounds made her want to just stay in for a few hours, at least to get a firm grip on reality for now. And just as she had closed her eyes and prepared herself for a well deserved nap, the voice rung out within her mind once more and said: "In all people, there is Darkness..." causing her to frown but regardless she kept her eyes closed and drifted off into a fitful sleep, just wanting to nap for a bit before going to the Academy and reading up on any material she would need to know before taking her exams, since she did not want to fail just because of the book portion of the test, and most definitely did not want to be lazy and wait until the very last minute.

When she awoke hours later, Risa had noted that something felt a bit off, but could not quite place it as she began to move off to the academy, deciding that now was better than never to go find those books and read up on the exam, or at the very least find someone to talk to at the academy and tell them all about her training, and see if they needed help with anything, as she wanted to be as much help to her fellow classmates as possible, even if that meant that she would be a bit overworked herself, it meant the world to her to be able to help others. She smiled softly to herself as she remembered all the people she worked with while in class, all of the younger students that had asked her for help when they wouldn't ask anyone else, because she had been so nice to them compared to everyone else who usually kept fairly to themselves. It was the one thing that Risa was most proud of herself for, that she was almost always open with others and went out of her way to help when it seemed that so many others were only interested in their own affairs, or only wanted to help people that they have known for a long time, that was however not how Risa was, or at least not currently. 

She continued to reminisce over her past years at the Academy as she moved inside the building, hoping to further her knowledge or someone else's, and to maybe even finally put her days as a Student behind her and finally become a Genin. 

[Exit]

[WC: 2000 Exactly]

[Claiming Clone Technique + Transformation Technique]

[Claiming 10 Stats]

approved