Good Eatin' (Coco)

This room really did smell good. That was all thanks to just how good Akira was at cooking. Funnily enough Akira didn't learn his cooking off anyone in particular, probably as he never knew his mother or father for them to teach him the culinary skills he required. In fact he learned simply because he needed to find a way to satiate his giant appetite which manifested itself' once he had gotten older. He could pretty much devour anything on a table and was the bane of any dinner party or anyone who ever had to cook for him. Eight bowls of ramen? Sure, Six massive stacks of pancakes? You bet, Seven helpings of Chicken Katsu Curry? Easy, an entire Christmas dinner for a family of 4? Piece of cake. He was a man who truly had the appetite of a dragon and people would often stare in awe every time he arrived at a restaurant or cafe and would pretty much liquidate their entire stock on the spot. He was a boss like that.

Akira knew there was more time until the food was ready however, he kinda felt bad for absolutely kicking her ass with that can a couple of days back so he figured he'd cook something up for her. There may have also been ulterior motives for such a culinary occasion but...She didn't need to know that. Not yet anyway. 

He watched Coco do as instructed. So she was pretty much as good with a blade as she could get at this point, bar a few Kenjutsu techniques he would make once she had gotten a proper sort with which to train with. As if Akira and Coco had a swordfight anytime soon her Factory Katana would just get cleaved in two by Moshin's almost otherworldly cutting power. No point if it she wouldn't even be able to parry his blade without Akira's cutting through hers like a hot knife through butter.

"Haha, almost as good as me." He winked at her. "Say, do you know anything about the Chidori Technique?" He enquired, wondering if she had any knowledge of the destructive A-rank Lightning Jutsu used by Sasuke Uchiha, it was a powerful jutsu and also wasn't the easiest one to learn. But he figured that she should learn something. She needed some powerful jutsu to hold her own against strong opponents. She was a Chuunin now and he figured she was ready for the step up. Plus he genuinely wanted to see Coco prosper into a fine ninja and he suggested that with this technique she would eventually be able to do so. 

Ugh, the way she'd changed his life as a Jounin ever since she arrived at Kumo was a bit embarassing, he knew he was putting quite a lot of effort into teaching her but...She was cute. Infact, he kinda found himself staring until he caught his wayward attention span and set it straight. "C-cause I was thinking I could teach it to you..." He slightly stuttered, his cheeks flushing a shade of pink.

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Coco nodded, for a second. "Yeah I think I've heard of it before. Some sort of lightning technique right?" Play it cool Coco, Play it cool. Don't let him see you sweat. Yes Coco had heard of the Chidori technique. Oh how she'd heard of it. She'd always been a little sour about being a wind Nature just because of it. Now don't get her wrong she'd loved having a wind nature, but she just always though the Chidori sounded so cool. Ever since she discovered she had a Lightning nature as well she'd wondered if she could learn it, but she didn't dare go around asking people. Now here was Akira, just volunteering to teach it to her no stings attacked. Awesome.

What a stand up guy this Akira was! He was honestly the only person in the village she talked, or cared about. He'd been very kind, and understanding with her. Maybe it was because they were both from different lands, or maybe something else, but she did feel a kinship with him.

She shook her self away from the thoughts, and just gave Akira a Smile. "Well Senpai if you know it, it must be an absolutely amazing technique." She gushed, hoping to butter him up.

(2363)

"Yeah, one of the deadliest you can perform on someone. Pierces straight through 'em." He simply noted, the technique of course required good chakra control and actually could sap the user's stamina quite quickly if they did not have much chakra. Fortunately Akira did so that made him pretty much a pro when it came to using it. "Cause I know you're gonna return to Ame soon. I figured you might as well take a technique home with you to protect you." He chuckled. Akira-senpai seemed to be going a little soft. "And to perhaps remind you of me..."


"It requires a boatload of chakra to use though, but I think you can do it." He smiled, before holding his palm out to demonstrate exactly what the jutsu was like in person, just as if she hadn't seen it. Akira's hand began to glow blue and then pretty much erupt into a flurry of lightning, converging in one central point on his palm, a bright almost blinding concentration of lightning chakra fluttered busily around. "That's it. Chidori. It's actually easy to explain how to do it but harder to pull it off. Channel the right amount of lightning chakra into the very middle of your palm. Start small and then work your way up until you form one that looks just about right." He taught, yeah it was all very simple to channel a whole hand's worth of lightning chakra but to actually get the right dosage of chakra without the technique being weak or too strong so as to burn the skin right off the user's palm. It was a very simple jutsu that focused pretty much essentially on dosage instead of complexity to perform. A different learning experience followed in that respect as well.

"You try." He smiled.

(2816)

Coco looked on in awe as Akikra lit up with a bright blue glow of chakra. Just looking at that ball of energy in his hand made Coco incredibly nervous. It was absolutely deadly, Even just being near it she could feel waves of heat washing over her. And she was going to learn that! She could just squeal. She could hardly believe that he planned on teaching her something that powerful. It was a honor really. A clear enunciation of Akira's faith in his student. Goodness if she knew what he had in plan she surely wouldn't' have tried crushing him with a salamander earlier.  Well the little guy would have still been summoned, but not Kasunda. She respected the man now, but that didn't make him Immune from pranks. Anyway. She smiled as her own face with lit up by the   pale blue light. She was truly lucky to have met Akira. There was no way she was going to forget about him anytime soon, so he could put that fear to rest.

He gave a brief explanation on how it went, she nodded. She felt like she understood what he was saying. But then he just told her to do it! Now Understanding how to do it, and actually being able to do it were two entirely different things Akira! Oh well, he'd taken her so far she couldn't let him down now! She was his star pupil after all. "Alright Senpai. I always knew that our encounters were electrifying, but now it's going to be doubly true!"

She held out her hand as he did and braced it with her other arms. This was going to be the highest ranked Jutsu she'd ever tried to learn. She didn't even know anything close to this complicated with her wind nature. Still she smiled, and tried to focus. That was just going to make it all the more impressive that she learned it! Adversity can't stop you! It only gives you fun stories to tell around the holidays. 

Jutsu were like paintings. That's what Akira had told her. She'd never had a very good grasp on even low level Jutsu, but he'd taught it to her in a way she understood. She loved him for that. 'Chidori' She tough, closing her eyes and gripping her arm. A thousand birds. She pictured it. A thousands strong flock of birds flying over a lake in the mountains. Lots of blue, blue like the lightning. Blue sky up high. Blue water down low. The mountains in the far distance shadded blue, like how things appear from far away. It was peaceful and Serine. So vivid you could almost hear the chirping of a thousand diffrent birds flying overhead. This was her chidori. What it looked like, what it felt like, and maybe even what she'd make happen with it's use. 

Now she just had to paint it. 

She imagined her canvas in front of her.Blank, white, and ready to be painted on. Any art she wanted to created could be placed upon this white little piece of heaven, and the order of today was Chidori. She allowed Chakra to move from her core into her hand. On the canvus of her mind she painted the top blue. With little x shaped strokes. She left white spaces for clouds. Then brought the same blue down to the bottom. Coming in from the outside she painted the bottom blue. She now had a beautiful mostly blue canvas in front of her. Through her hand she had a strong flow of Chakra bellowing. But a blue canvas on it's own wasn't going to make a good picture, and neither was a constant flow of chakra. 

With a dark blue she painted the vague shape of mountains on the horizon. Then she became more focused, with her painting and her Chakra. She moved from the back ground to the foreground. Moving in from mountians, into a forest, and then into the lake side. She colored it in white Browns, and greens, but mostly blue. As she did the Chakra in her hand began to form into her hand, focusing in the center of her hand. A small ball of Chakra was becoming visible, sparks flying off of it wildly. It wasn't enaything impessive, Coco could have created a better current with kunai in hand. But that was with a tool to focus her chakra on, and this was with nothing but her Chakra and imagination. 

She finished up the trees, and the snow. She paitned upon the shimmering surface of the lake's waters the reflections of the forest which stood proudly above it all. Then with quick dark flicks of her imagination she painted in the the birds that made up the Chidori. She painted in about a dozen into the sky, and the painting looked complete. An absolutely breath taking landscape that Coco knew good and well that she'd never be able to recreate in reality. That wasn't true thought. She could create it! She was doing it right now! 

At the moment she had a full sized Chidori in her hand. Long arcs of electricity sprung out from it. It's size increased and decreased at a rapid rate, a clear sign of Coco's limited control over it, but it was mighty impressive looking all the same.

After about  a hundred birds in the sky the painting was begging to look crowded. She began to paint them around the lake, and mountains. They rested upon branches, and rocks, and peaks, and limb, and flowers, and lily pods. Birds covered every imaginable surface of the world. The world was absolutely covered in the dark flickerings that were the birds. It was horrendous, and she'd only managed to get 600 on the board! In her mind's eyes the birds ceased to be little flicks of the brush and became large horrendous swoops of black paint across her beautiful world. 

The Chidori in Coco's and fluctuated Wildly, before ballooning out of her control.

Coco hissed sharply before immediately cutting the Chidori off. "Wrong Dosage." She hissed between her teeth as he lifted her palm upwards. She managed to burn a layer or two of skin from her palm. The center was a bright moist looking red, and smoke or steam bellowed up from it.  "Dang it, I almost had it." She winced a little, moving her hand hurt. It pulsed with a pain that was exquisite. "Hope you weren't planning on me cutting any more vegetables, my sword hand is shot."  With a final sigh she blew the wispy smoke from her hand. "Think I can give it another try? I know I almost had it! I could feel it. I just saw all of those sparks coming out of it, and was like 'Awesome! I can make it brighter and sparkyer.'"

(3509)

Akira took a look at her and watched her attempt to perform the technique. He figured he'd instructed her good enough for her to grasp on how she should actually proceed when it comes to practicing and actually materializing the jutsu. He knew he was going one MASSIVE step up from a simple Wind jutsu to an A-rank lightning jutsu. But he believed in Coco and he believed that she was ready to make this massive leap forwards. Learning a technique like this, a technique which was beautiful both musically and visually but could pretty much kill on contact with any target could one day perhaps save her life as a Chuunin ranked ninja. Every ninja of that rank needed at least one powerful jutsu as a go-to or even a last-ditch option.

Akira had learned the Chidori at 9 years old, so he figured a Coco in her prime should do it no problem, he saw potential in her, after all. Potential to be something truly great, some kind of influential figure. Probably because he saw a bit of her within him. A lost soul, someone who only very recently found a place they want to commit to. Akira hadn't been in Kumogakure for long, but the villagers and all the other Shinobi seemed to be like family to him. Family he had to protect. And Coco felt the same way, in truth they had so much more in common that would seem to be. He couldn't really help but be admired. Until he found himself staring again, the way she seemed so focused when trying to learn, a certain determination. A determination Akira also shared. To become someone worthwhile. A protector, shit, perhaps even a hero. Akira had failed being a hero before. He'd never told anyone but he couldn't defend Iwagakure when he was Tsuchikage, albeit very briefly, he let many many people down in the process. Kumogakure was somehow an escape for him, a way to redeem himself for all the people he had disappointed and all those who died because of his decisions. In truth there was nothing he could do. He was confused so he left, he had lost both his adoptive brothers and his whole adoptive family, it wasn't his place to die...No. His destiny laid elsewhere, and the path he'd forge would carry him to the village he now currently resided. Kumogakure.

He couldn't help but smile as she seemed to pull it off, although she was really rushing things now. Chidori was something that could be formed quickly, but required the utmost care when doing so. It was like painting 1000 Birds onto a canvas, unless you pay close attention to how small the birds are and where they were situated, you'd never manage to learn the jutsu properly. It wasn't about wildly placing birds. Every bird had it's place, and he'd have to explain this to Coco.

"Coco, I'm gonna use the painting analogy again. Say you're trying to fit 1000 birds onto a canvas. Don't wildly place birds all over the place and hope to make the jutsu, cause what you did is you started off fine, but you went in way too fast at the end. Each little bird of this technique has its' place and role. Stay cool, the jutsu will be performed quicker the more you practice, but for now - take your time. You're in no race to learn this jutsu and unless you take it at a decent pace, it's gonna keep hurting you." He advised, looking at Coco's injury with a bit of a grimace. That looked nasty, he did the exact same thing when he learned it. He'd patch up her injuries afterwards. Considering she was seriously determined about giving it another go. "Well...uh...I made the dinner for you so...Don't worry about it." He spoke, finally spitting out the truth with a blush on his face it was kinda embarassing to admit but. He wanted to spend time with her, so. And while it was oldschool, perhaps a homecooked meal was the way to do so. 


"So have another try, but don't let it get out of hand this time. Take it slowly and gently, true art isn't made in a mere couple of strokes you know. Eventually you'll end up with a masterpiece like mine." He grinned, Akira saw jutsu as works of art, and they were in some respect, each one had an author or creator of sorts and all required imagination and expression to perform. It was truly an unacknowledged form of art. And an art Akira so happened to admire and he was glad his whole "Jutsu-Painting" Philosophy was rubbing off on his student.

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"For me?" Coco buried her face into her scarf, letting the scarlet coloring of her face be hid beneath the heavy wool. She didn't know how people who didn't have scarfs even lived their lives properly. That was so sweet of him, truly. She hadn't expected anything like that out of him, that's for sure. Not that he wasn't a nice guy or anything, he just seemed like such a .... Goofball. She'd hardly think him the sort of guy to go and make a meal for a girl. Maybe behind all that cockiness beat the heart of a lover.
Then he went a head and called his Jutsu a masterpiece, and Coco was back to thinking of him as a goofball. A masterpiece yeah right, Coco rolled her eyes playfully. "Slow and steady wins the race, got it boss." She crouched back down into a ready stance. She had better get this one right, she wasn't too sure how many more layers of skin she had left on her skin.

She closed her eyes, and let the chakra flow into the palm of her hand.

A light blue sky in the air. Baby blue, and it looked like it'd stretch on forever, over the mountains and across the world. Lazy, puffy, white clouds that drifted high in the sky without a care in the world. Like little balls of candy floss. They were just barely high enough up to avoid scraping their bellies on the peaks of the mountains. Mountains which were just barely visible in the backdrop. A strong dark blue, like the color of Akira's eyes, Akira was kind of like a mountain himself. Strong and powerful, and oh so sturdy looking. Coco shook her head it wasn't time for thoughts like that.

Coming down from the mountains were trees, nice think pine trees. Coco always thought pine trees looked like they were wearing dresses. They came down from the mountains and formed a mighty green forest, before stopping, and forming a clearing around a like. A like of crystal blue waters, that reflected the sky above. Like a watery liquid mirror. Green grass, like coco's eyes. Tiny, but thick blades of grass, that looked like they were waving in the wind. It surrounded the lake, growing lush and green off of it's water.

Then she filled in the snowy peaks of the mountains, and the stray branches of the trees. A stump here, a deer there, and nine hundred and ninety five birds positioned all around the painting. A spot of each of them just as akira had said, but she couldn't seem to find a spot for the last five...

Back in the real world, we find a very well formed Chidori forming in Coco's hands, It's still a little small, and wouldn't' pack the punch that a fully formed one would, but it was still pretty good.

Coco opened her eyes, to look at her work. She looked slightly disappointed, it was so close to being perfect. She looked over at Akira to see if she could pull any more advice out of him, then she caught a look into his eyes. Deep Dark Blue. She blushed, as her own eyes shimmered and danced, but didn't look away. She suddenly knew where those last few birds where suppose to go.

With a final Crackles her hand became a lit with electrical energy as a fully formed, Chidori came into existence in the palm of her hand. The whole room lit up in the indigo glow of her newest Jutsu. It'd taken her about eight minutes to get it fully formed, and it still didn't' look as strong as Akira's, but it was pretty good. She could work on perfecting it later, for now she had to enjoy the triumph. "I did it!" She whooped, not daring to move around too much.

Then the camera pans upwards, to the ceiling to show us the Picture Coco had been painting in her mind. It looks just the same as it always has, but it slowly zooms in on the lake. From there we can see the painted figures of Akira and Coco dressed casually by the lake on a picnic blanket, happily feeding seeds to five black birds.

(4202)
(2000/2000) Words for Chidori.
And that's how you turn a story about ninjas into a slice of life fiction my friends.

"Yeah...I was kinda hoping you'd want to have dinner with me..." He blushed a bit, he couldn't really find anything else to say for a reasoning as to why he wanted to cook for her, of course he could just come out with it but that'd probably be really overwhelming and not what he was after at all.

Akira was a pretty unorthodox Sensei, not even the man himself would deny that. Akira was a noble man, a man capable of extreme compassion which was probably his best trait as a person, but he was also pretty goofy and he was willing to admit it. He pretty much knew who he was as a person, and while he could be cocky at times, it was a guise he only really put on towards students and people he outranked. He was actually very respectful to not only his superiors but also his peers. He was pretty much an enigma as a man, he had a confident and sometimes quiet exterior, but inside beat the heart of a lion. Or a lover, as Coco may suspect. 

In any case he watched her the whole way through performing her jutsu. She was really going at it, the way she was taking her time to picture everything perfectly pretty much mimicked the attention to detail that Akira was asking for the second time around. The thing with jutsus were that they were unpredictable and quite devastating if they were rushed. It was much better that people learning them slowed down and took their time to assess how exactly they wanted to go about learning it. But Akira seemed to find the whole philosophy on how to learn it in a much less complex and easier to understand manner. By simply treating the jutsu as art, as if you were trying to paint it into the physical world. Coco seemed to grasp this concept perfectly as by the end she had pretty muched formed a perfect Chidori. And the only reason it lacked size was because her chakra pool was not as deep as Akira's, which was a pretty difficult statistic to match in anyone's case and not just her own. He had chakra for days basically.

He could see how determined she was to get this done, and she had done it on only her second attempt at the jutsu, where it would've taken any normal student days or perhaps even weeks to pull off, and that was if they even had the chakra to perform such a high-level technique. But she had basically done it and he couldn't help but be both impressed and proud of her at the same time. She was progressing fast, seems as if he'd run out of stuff to teach her sooner instead of later. He'd better get cracking too as he didn't want to leave her disappointed once she asked for new jutsus to teach her. 

"I'd really like to picture what you painted last to finish the jutsu..." His cheeks flushing a light red. He needed to take a page out of Coco's book and start wearing a scard, or even a balaclava at this point. 

He had noticed her looking into his eyes before she had finished the jutsu, she obviously thought of something in particular, something likely involving him. But all he remembered was that he could not take his eyes off her, something about her made him feel a way he hadn't felt in quite a while. In any case he figured he should probably stop gazing around and instead help Coco with her burns. "I'm gonna get a wet towel for your burns." He smiled, grabbing one from one of the drawers and soaking it under the cold tap. Approaching Coco so he could wrap the soaked rag over her hands to cool down and cover it up. It'd also suck if she burned her dominant hand. An issue Akira would never relate to as he was pretty much completely ambidextrous, which made him a fearsome swordsman to come up against and also meant he didn't slip up when he used one handed seals.

In any case the food was pretty much ready and he'd get to work serving it up after he patched up his dear student first, her safety was more important and he didn't want her wounds getting infected and ruining her hand come the next training session they'd have. 


4359

As Coco saw Akira coming her way with a damp, cloth she backed up a second. "Hey that's alright I can do it."  Coco announced nervously. Though not the same flirty nervousness she'd been feeling all day. "My dad's a nurse, so I know what to do." Mostly true. She'd reach to grab the cloth from Akira's hand. No matter who did it, she'd hiss loudly as the cloth came into contact with her skin. It felt twice as painful than when she'd actually brunt the skin. At least then she had nerves being burnt as well! She gritted her teeth, as the cloth was secured around her hand. She could still see Akira's worried/ perplexed face. "Don't worry I'll stop by a Clinic on my way home. Or Akihana can look at it, if me living at her house is even canon right now." (Take that 3rd wall!)

Despite that rather strange brushing off of Akira, she was still very much ready for some dinner! She felt rather drained by the whole experience. As Akira started pulling things out of the Oven she could feel her mouth sweat from the smell, and her pours begin to drool from the heat. Wait a second. Her mouth began to drool from the smell, and her pours began to sweat from the heat!

She went ahead and began to unzip her jacket, as Akira had his back to her. She giggled to herself, and did a sexy little wiggle as she slid the Jacket off of her body. Only two layers of clothing? Well Well Coco was getting comfortable with her Senpai! Even if he didn't see anything, or even know what removing a layer in front of someone meant to Coco, she still blushed a bright red. It was so stupid!

Coco didn't flirt. Okay? Coco didn't need a man to look after her. Didn't need a man trying to nurse her hand, didn't need someone to cook for her. She blushed again, as she looked at the spread Akira had going on. No no no! She didn't need it! No matter how sweet it was! Men only made things more complicated!

Akira retrieved his Roast from the oven, the smell alone was enough to make Coco hungry enough to eat a giant salamander. As he looked down upon his creation he had that cute/ cocky smile of his. Coco just stared at him angrily. She hated him for getting her all up in a tizzy like this!

(4610)

"Haha. Believe it or not even if I hurt one of my students it's my responsibility to make sure they walk out okay." He smiled caringly. Then she went off and mentioned some stuff about the 4th wall. "...What?..." Akira responded, obviously perplexed, there was nothing of the sorts, surely! Akira turned his head to the side to look at the said imaginary barrier between fiction and reality...That's messed up, he probably shouldn't do that for too long, he's making the writer uncomfortable...

He regained his composure. And pretty much pulled out food from every appliance he had, he had everything from spring rolls to dumplings to that massive pork roast. Akira was a simple man, a man who also was pretty much completely independant. A man who could truly shatter the whole "men complicate things" stereotype. He was still however...a man. He slept like a corpse and ate like a full-sized dragon.

Noticing she'd removed her jacket he couldn't help but smile. "Getting cozy huh?" He giggled teasingly, just a little bit of banter, he could also see she was as red as a tomato by now. Damn she was adorable, she'd probably have to stop or the poor man would have a heart attack. And if he didn't have one already, the little wiggle pretty much sent him to the morgue. Damn. 

He wasn't cooking to impress her or anything (well, yeah he was). In truth even if she wasn't there he'd have cooked up the massive meal, but the fact that she was impressed (even though she tried her best to not look it), meant that surely Akira could be given this one opportunity to be a little cocky. Instead, apparently not, so he pouted at her playfully. "Alright, I won't say anything." He laughed lightheartedly before serving her a pretty large platter of everything. "But you gotta tell me if it's good, okay?" He winked.

Akira sat down opposite her with a grin, obviously excited to get stuck in. And with that, he served himself an absolutely gargantuan portion of food, a mountain so high it struggled to even fit on his plate. And with that, he tucked in, chopsticks moving swiftly to retrieve food and place it within his mouth. Damn, that was good. Even by his standards. He could be really cocky, but he figured he'd save it.

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'Holy butts.' Coco thought looking down at her plate. 'Am I suppose to eat all of this?' She reached for her chops sticks with shaky hands. Were they sharing off the same plate? What was going on. She looked up for instruction and saw Akira already digging into his mountain of food. "That's a big appetite you have." She announced astonished. 

They chatted pleasantly throughout dinner. Smiling always, and laughing often. "This is all so Delicious!" 

Coco was doing everything she could to keep Akira's pace. She'd always been raised to eat all the food on her plate. After all kids in Kumo who didn't' eat all their food were told. "You know there are starving kids in Amegakure who would love to have that food." Still despite that upbringing she was having a hard time eating everything.

What made it even harder was the fact that everything was so good! She'd had to pick and choose what to put into her quickly filling stomach.

By the end of the dinner Coco distended belly was almost comical. "So full, so full." She moaned, slamming her head on the table. "So full."

(4801)