A breakthrough (Solo)

Naoki was not in the mood. Not in the mood for games, but apparently he has been dragged into one. Last night he went to this club, all sweet and great, spend quite a memorable night full of dances, fine girls, drinks and whatnot. Possibly bashed a few faces in too, although being in a certain condition at the time, he did not really remember exactly, so possibly. But now the night was pretty much over, it would be dawning any moment. And Naoki found himself in someone's apartment, in a company of four charming ladies, two of them the Uchiha remembered from the club. And the five of them were playing some sort of game. Just out of the night, hangover at its best, all of this was mighty confusing to the man. He could hardly remember how he got here, but he did recall that before this they have played something like checkers or chess, where three of them told him what moves to make, then Risk, Monopoly, something called the Ninja, which involved playing right cards at the right time against certain other cards, at some point all of it just blurred out, but he was certain there were at least five more different card or board games they have played. And now it was a game he could not name, but he was certain he was losing it really bad. At least it seemed they were not playing for money, but rather for fun. Naoki would raise his a bit dull gaze from the cards to the girls. They were laughing and saying something to one another, something he could not understand. And if that were true, then how could he even hope to understand what any of these symbols on the cards meant and how he was supposed to play them. The mechanism that was his mind was slowly starting up again, although it most certainly had a few rods in its cogs. He would soon realize that he was mighty tired and hungry, and that this was a giant waste of time and not even interesting or fun to him. So, letting the cards go he would clap his hands into a single hand seal. The man did not bother to stand up. With a poof of smoke he would disappear from the room leaving the girls confused, but who cares.

Dashing through the islands at blurring speed the village leader was deep in thought. Well, as deep as his condition allowed, actually there were but a couple thoughts in his head at the moment, which was the reason he suddenly changed his course. Instead of going on auto pilot, the man would now head for one of the beaches of Shimagakure, in the island where his house stood, to the beach quite close to it. In a poof of smoke appearing on the site, he would not stop and continue towards the water. He would passively note that there were no people here at this early hour, although in his current state he did not really care. Taking off his shirt and pants, unclothing and dropping everything on the warm sand the Uchiha would walk into the water until it reached his knees and then plunged fully. Shock-therapy they call it, he would think. The sudden feeling of being soaked wet with water and oh hey, also underwater, would quicken his recovery. Relaxing fully the man would remain face down in the water for a few moments. He would feel the waves going past him, the water was fairly warm around these parts and while there were sources of drinkable water here and there, the sea water around the Islands was full of different salts from underwater rocks and cliffs. Because of that he would float on the surface of the water some time before starting to slowly sink when the air would leave his lungs. The feeling was that of completely not caring. He had lately been working day and night on a fairly big project, something that would bring the sealing arts to another level completely. Because of his studies he now had an even more firm grasp of the specialty. But lately he has hit a dead end, he could not figure out some quite simple thing in a mighty complex context. It has been three days since that, he tried the first day, got depressed the second day and then went to the club. And now he was here, sinking in the sea and he had remembered. The project he was so frustrated about was finished months ago, it was the Exemplar and he even had made one quite successfully, I might add. But the frustration he was now facing was of equal levels as it was not a technique of his own design and he needed to make it work as he wanted. He needed it to behave.
Underwater Naoki's eyes were closed, as he did not like feeling of salty water in them, but he could hear the sea. He could heard the waves going over him, now that he had submerged. They had a calming effect, it would seem that if nothing disturbed him he would remain like this forever. However something did disturb him, he felt touching the bottom with his chest. Soon his whole body touched down, this part was not deep, he could probably stand here, after all he was only maybe like twenty meters from the land, unless the currents carried him farther away. With a sudden move he would wake the hell up, feeling the lack of breath the Uchiha would push away from the sandy bottom with his hands and breach the surface in a moment. The full breath of fresh air would make his head dizzy for a moment, but it was not the alcohol in his veins, he could tell, it being pulled from the land of the dead to the land of the living. Which actually gave him an idea...

This might be the breakthrough he was waiting for! Pushing away the water with his hands Naoki would sense the sand under his feet, he would start walking to the shore. All the while this new idea was swirling in his head. If it worked... well it would not be anything sensational really, but it would be quite an advantage for the usage of the technique. Getting to the shore Naoki would release a bit of fire chakra to dry himself with a steam coming off his body before clothing up and heading to a small clearing near here, where he would occasionally come to train. Normally at this hour, after a night like that, he would head straight to bed. He felt like falling asleep any second now, but this idea was driving him to try it first. With the memory from his sharingan he would remember seeing and learning the technique for the first time. Naoki would step into the clearing and find somebody there. It was Caithe, she was pretty damn early. Suppressing his chakra Naoki decided to sneak up on her and after making sure he was behind her he would use the Blink technique, making the hand seals quickly before she could turn around in the direction of his chakra spiking he would be right behind her, whispering in her ear. Then he would have to duck as to not be hit in the face with a fist, but only to end up hit in the face with her foot, which was as painful as it was shameful.

Some few minutes later after the female Jounin patched up his bleeding nose they would be sitting on the sand in the clearing. After that night Naoki was hungry, so she was letting him have her sandwiches on the promise that he would take her out later that day. And of course he would gladly do that, she was a pretty sweet lady, deadly both on the field and in the bed. As he was silently munching Caithe would ask him what he was doing up so early, she knew him well enough to tell that it was unusual for him. Sure he could wake up early if it was demanded and he would actually sometimes be early on his own accord, but never to go out for air or to train. The Uchiha decided to better keep it a secret that it was not early, but very late for him, that he was to the club without her and god spare him better not even breathe out about the other girls. So he made up a tale, that was not so far from reality, which only made it sound more realistic, that he could not sleep because he was obsessed with this idea about training for his jutsu. But then his play would be turned against him as she demanded that he would show her this idea that would hold him from sleeping. The man had to admit, ideas about jutsu were not really something that would keep him from sleeping, in fact if he had an idea in the evening, then he would voluntarily go to sleep, because morning is wiser.

But at this point he could do little but obey if he did not want to end up with another injury on his face, were she to disbelieve him completely. So standing up he would put some little space between them and explain to her the technique that Maku had taught him. He would explain the issue of there being hand seal required to execute the move, which was a major disadvantage in high speed combat, when he might need to use the move without the chance to actually weave hand seals for it. He would then explain the idea that would emulate the same process for his chakra system that making the hand seals would do, which would allow to him to activate the technique without actually folding any. Of course he noted that the process was unique to each technique, for some of them it was probably even impossible and even when it was possible it required being very familiar with the move and hours or exercising it. He would attempt it several times before her and only when the girl was starting to lose her patience would it actually succeed. He would teleport five meters instantly merely by looking at his destination while his hands were at his sides. Turning around at Caithe Naoki would make a triumphant smile, which would only widen at her astonished expression. She was probably on the verge of disbelieving that the technique was even true, when suddenly he proved it all to her.

She would have taken him right there and then, but Naoki wanted to test it in actual combat. He would soothe her by promising to take her somewhere really, like really really nice, if she helped him out with this. If devastating was a word, then she was it, in combat anyways. When their little spar began Caithe would charge at him with a katana in her right hand. The slash Naoki would parry with a kunai and then notice her making the hand seal and jump back as she released a whole waterfall from her mouth. Before he would land and properly regain his footing his female friend would shape the water into several needles and launch it at him. Well, this was it. In order to dodge the small projectiles that were too many to guard against he would teleport from mid air to right next to her without weaving the hand seals, which he couldn't even if he had the time to because he had a kunai in his hand. Using his sudden transference he would swing his leg and flip her on the soft sand, then help her back up. With that his training and the test was complete and Naoki would fall asleep right there, before he could even get to his home. His dreams were beyond sweet though.

2009 w.
[Exit,
1773 w. finished mastering Blink technique
236 w. towards training Seal of Fate
+20 AP]