Rain on High (Io)

Coco took her newly acquired student up to the hill top where she'd been training these last few weeks. The hill overlooked a low valley, which had a crystal clear river flowing through it, and it just smelled of serenity. There had been a very well placed Sakura tree atop the hill too, but Coco had chopped the down whilst training her sword. A action she sorely regretted.

He looked around at the peaceful valley and thought how much it contradicted his mood but he would do what ever it took to get stronger. "Why are we training here sensei?" He asked thrown by the location

Coco took In a deep breath, and smelled the fresh mountain air. She gave his question a shrug. "I dunno." She answered. "It's just always seemed like a nice place to train to me. Out of the way, nice and quiet. And no one has complained to me yet about cutting down this tree so I'm guessing it's pretty deserted too. No one will get hurt."

She looked over her student. "We got to get you to Genin before we can go anywhere. So what do you know so far?"

"Sadly nothing I have trained but only in vain. But I'll train as long as it takes to reach my goal to be stronger."(OOC:I could have already had generic sealing and substitution but they were never approved) he looked at his feet ashamed knowing he should have gotten at least a little stronger by now but he hadn't. He looked up and said "sensei where should we start?"

About what she expected. She didn't think the lad was in the academy for that long. "That's okay." Coco announced assuredly. "We'll getcha all caught up. I'm gonna start with the Clone technique. That's my specialty at least, so it's be what I can work on you the most with."

She smiled and thought of Akira her senpai, who'd taught her just about all she knew about Ninjutsu. "Now Jutsu are like Paintings. Your body and your surrounding area is the canvas and your chakra is the paint. Depending on how you press your chakra onto the surrounding canvas is how it will effect it. Too little chakra and we won't see any results. Too much and we'll just get a big ugly blob of nothing in particular. It helps me if I close my eyes and imagine what I'm painting while I'm doing it."

She formed the hand signs for the basic clone technique. "For this one I just imagine a portrait of myself holding a cup of coffee in a sweater my boyfriend bought me. Now in my head I see that. But with my chakra I have to make that come to life. The more advanced a technique is the more complicated you have to make the painting." With a poof of smoke a perfect clone of Coco came into view. "Get it?"

"I think so." he formed the hand seals for the jutsu and focused some of his chakra into it and then poof a goofy looking version of himself appeared. "I don't think I did that right sensei." He said a troubled look on his face

"You're right." Coco nodded. "I was pretty bad a jutsu too when I was a student. "Don't rush it. let it happen. Alan Watts states that we make the mistake of thinking that life is a journey. When it's actually a song or dance. People don't rush through a song just to hear the last note. No we dance so that we may enjoy the dancing. We paint so that we may feel the joy of painting."

She motioned for him to try again. "Jutus aren't just about making things explode, it's all about the follow through. Try again and this time take your time."

"Like a song... I like music...ok I'm gonna try something." He said as he closed his eyes and he quietly hummed a tune to himself as he calmly made the hand seals and his chakra rose up in him he cast the technique he heard a poof and he opened his eyes and in front of him stood a near perfect copy of himself. He smiled. "Awesome...I did it." He said excited

Coco looked over the Clone with a credulous look. It was pretty good, but there was something off about the hair. Coco couldn't quite tell what but it was just enough that a person would be able to tell that this wasn't the same person "You're getting close." She announced with a delighted nod. "That humming was a good technique for you, but it still needs a little work. Once more please."

He started humming another tune this time he focused harderon successfully performing this technique. He formed the necessary hand signs a little more quickly this time.{deep in his thoughts he remembered the tune his mother used to him when he was upset it was this tune he hummed to himself} he hummed louder focused even harder {he remembered all the times she sang that tune to him to help him sleep after his brother died} his humming became more intense and his focus became razor sharpashe poured all his chakra into the the hand seals he formed he would succeed this time even if it took all his strength to do so he performed the technique as four loud poofs went off around him breathless he stopped humming and slowly opened his eyes and saw that four perfect clones surrounded him he let out a strained chuckle barely able to stand "I...did...it.." He said huffing tiredly He looked at his sensei for confirmation on a successful performance of the jutsu as he slowly caught his breath.