The peaceful pond given form

Lazarus was standing on a rock overlooking the pond that he frequented when he wished to be alone. He returned here today, the incident with the wolves still fresh in his mind, to train on a jutsu he had read about.

Lazarus was walking around Kiri, via the back alleys he always used, when he had found a magazine depicting a battle-scarred shinobi preforming a water dragon jutsu, giving that Lazarus' base chakra element was water, this peaked his interest.

Lazarus had grabbed it and returned to his alley-home, and sat down to read it. The magazine was titled 'Shinobi Weekly!' and this edition was on the 10 water jutsu that every ninja should know.

He had opened the magazine to the page that the main article started on and it explained that all aspiring shinobi should know the basic jutsu before moving on to the more advanced ones. It further explained that, even though not all ninja can preform water style jutsu, one should not be dissuaded from reading this article if they can't. The reason being that even the knowledge of these jutsu can prepare the learning ninja for a combat situation with a water style user if, and when, they should encounter one.

"Knowledge is power, I suppose." Lazarus said, to no one in particular.

This led him to walk back to the pond that he visited quite frequently. The quiet, secluded area would act as a perfect training ground, while the pond itself would provide Lazarus with all the water he could possible need.

Lazarus pulled out his new magazine and opened it to the first page of water jutsu coverage.

"Water clone jutsu, huh? Well I suppose that's a good a place as any to start." He stated, still reading.

"Okay, so I just need to make the hand seal of the tiger, and create the clone from the pond." He mumbled to himself, hiding the magazine under a nearby log that Lazarus had recently brought to act as a seat.

Lazarus steps out onto the pond, allowing a small portion of his chakra to steadily flow to the bottoms of his feet so he won't fall through the surface. He walks out into the pond, creating small ripples with each step.

Lazarus stopped walking about 5 yards away from the shore and looked down. The fish were so beautiful. Each one was a different gallery of colors and patterns. He couldn't imagine a more beautiful thing than nature, even when it tries to kill him. He let loose a small chuckle, remembering the majestic dog that had tried to end his life just a couple days ago. He decided to watch the fish some more before working on this new jutsu, so he crouched down and stared at the scaled bodies flitting around under the constantly warping screen into their world.

"All the colors, they are all just so divine..." He said, staring past the surface of the water as it became almost completely still once more. In one moment, after the water had become fully still again, there were no fish in site and he saw his reflection looking back at him, then the fish came back.

After a few minutes Lazarus stood up again and prepared himself for training.

He started by practicing some breathing exercises, in through the nose, out through the mouth, and the like. He did this for a few moments before clasping his hands together in the hand seal of the tiger and looked at them to make sure he made the seal correctly. His palms were together with his pinkies and ring fingers interlocked, his middle and index fingers were extended to the sky, his thumbs were mirroring that position. Once he was satisfied that he had adequately preformed the hand sign, Lazarus closed his eyes.

He envisioned a portion of his chakra gathering around his hands. His hands started to feel a bit lighter. He then focuses on expelling some of that chakra, from his extended fingers, and directing it to a portion of the pond in front of him. The sound of trickling water could be heard as Lazarus focused on pulling some of the water out of the pond, which caused him to grin. He had everything from here planned out. He was going to start off by making a sort of rag doll shape first, then try to form that into a copy of himself. When Lazarus thought that he had lifted enough water from the pond to begin forming it, he stopped focusing on pulling the water from the pond.

When he was confident that he had stopped any flow between his water and the pond's water, Lazarus started visualizing the water to flatten into a rectangular block. He pictured the top of the block compacting, in turn becoming round, eventually being a rough head. Afterwords he did the same for each one of the arms and legs. Finally he pictured the center become round, as the torso and abdomen. In all, he thought that he had a, pretty decent, basic humanoid shape.

He decided to take a peak at what he had made. He opened his left eye and saw the humanoid shape. It was the perfect size, however it was far from how he needed it. The water-doll was sloshing around, causing large ripples over what he was able to keep from spilling into itself.

Lazarus closed his eye and envisioned the water pulling itself towards its center. He figured if he did this he would be able to tighten the surface so that it would be calm. This didn't work, however. A sound that seemed to resemble that of a large splash rang out, and then Lazarus was soaked. It seemed as if the doll had just popped. He opened his eyes and, as he had assumed, the humanoid water-doll was gone. He dropped his head to gaze into the pond, at he same he let his hands fall back to his sides, and sighed.

"Really? That's not nice." He murmured. "Oh well."

Lazarus sighed once more as he lifted his head, made the seal of the tiger, and closed his eyes. He envisioned his chakra flow into the area around his hands, once more. As before he allowed some of the chakra to flow from his outstretched fingers into the pond in front of him. He drew the perfect amount of water from the pond and cut off the flow again. He formed the mass of water into a rectangular block, as he had done previously.

Lazarus decided that, this time, he was going to cut the excess water off of the block, as if chiseling a block of marble, as opposed to compacting it to the shape that he wanted, as he had attempted in doing, which only succeeding in soaking him. He started allowing unnecessary parts of the water block to fall away, back into the pond. After a few moments of doing this, Lazarus had acquired the shape that he desired. He opened his left eye, again, to see if he had, in fact, made a smooth, stable water doll. When he saw a calm, still, semi-translucent, humanoid shape staring back at him, he smile and closed his eyes again. Now that he had that done, now all he had to do was do it a few more times. He began the process again, using the existing water doll as a template.

Focus chakra around hands, allow said chakra to flow from the hands to the surface of the pond, draw water from the ponds surface, cut off water flow, form a rectangular block, drop away unnecessary parts until a perfectly proportioned, exquisitely smooth, doll is achieved, then take a peak from his left eye to assure he had succeeded. Once he had achieved a perfect doll this time, however, he dispersed it, allowing the water to fall back into the pond. He repeated this, progressively dropping steps, until he was so familiar with the shape of the doll that he no longer needed to go through all the steps to create one. He then stopped creating any more water dolls, and dispersed both the dolls he had.

Lazarus opened his eyes and watched himself create a water doll. The humanoid doll formed from the water in front of him and rose up, until it was standing on the still surface of the pond. Now all that was left to do was to make it resemble himself. There was one problem, though. No matter how much he focused, he just couldn't seem to visualize himself.

"Well, I might as well try something else then." Lazarus groaned as he dispersed the water doll in from of him.

He figured that he might as well try to create the water clone without following any of the steps that he had utilized during his training, just to see what would happen. If he were to create a perfect clone on his first try, then he would be able to go back to his cozy little alley sooner, rather than later.

He envisioned a clone of himself being created under the surface. Once Lazarus was satisfied that he successfully created a water clone, he opened his eyes to look at his masterpiece. What he saw, however, was not a water clone, but instead a gruesome amalgamation of his own likeness' different body parts and crystal clear liquids forming ligaments that held them together. The abomination moaned in detest and terror, as it's head was extruding from it's chest facing down, forcing it to stare at itself until such time that it's creator disperses it. The sight of such a thing terrified Lazarus more than anything he could ever remember seeing in his life.

"WHAT THE HELL!?" Lazarus cried out. Fortunately, for the water clone-being, the shock caused him to lose focus on controlling his chakra, causing the monstrosity to explode into water and Lazarus to fall into the pond. All of the fish scattered upon his entrance to their realm.

He watched the world slip away from him. It almost seemed as if the reality in which Lazarus had just created that hideous being in was becoming a distant dimension, and he was given the gift of being able to gaze through the gateway to said dimension. The sky and it's clouds became little more than a multitude of different, albeit only in a minor way, shades of blue and white warping into each other. As he let himself drift under the water it dawned on him. His reflection in the water! He swam, with great haste, to the surface.

Lazarus breached the surface of the pond, near the rock that he had been standing on, and climbed out. He then channeled some of his chakra to the bottoms of his feet, turned around, and walked back to where he had been standing when he fell in the pond, about 5 yards in. He then crouched down and stared at the surface of the water. His reflection was moving and getting distorted by the ripples in the water. He continued watching his reflection as the water had become completely still. He stared at his reflection until he could close his eyes and envision himself perfectly clear. 

"Now then, let's try this again!" Lazarus loudly stated as he stood straight up, snapped his head straight, and clasped his has together in the hand seal of the tiger so swiftly that his palms stung.

He fully immersed himself in visualizing a water doll forming under the surface of the water, then being constructed into the perfect clone of himself. It only took him a few seconds before he was confident that he had, finally, created the perfect clone.

"Rise, my clone!" Lazarus shouted as he willed a portion of his chakra into his creation, so that it could finally manifest itself in the physical world. He then willed it to join him on the surface.

The water started bulging before four small pillars started rising from the center of bulge. As it continued rising, Lazarus quickly realized that they were fingers, as the thumb and palm followed shortly after, not to mention they were flesh colored. Then the wrist, forearm, and elbow manifested which was covered in the sleeve of a denim jacket. As it continued rising, a second arm started rising, also starting from the fingertips. When the arms had, adequately, manifested both of the them lowered themselves to the surface of the pond and started pushing. This is when Lazarus first saw the head of the being rising from the bulge in the water. It had silver hair, long in front, and medium in the back. The torso had formed next. Dark green t-shirt and a denim jacket. The clone pushed itself fully out of the water and landed on the surface of the pond, about 2 yards away, in front of Lazarus.

"Finally, you have arrived." Lazarus stated to his newly formed clone.

"Well, where else would I be?" The clone inquired.

Lazarus dispersed his clone, chuckling at it's response to his statement. He walked back to the shore and grabbed his magazine from underneath the log. He looked to the sky as he rolled up the magazine and put it in his pocket. Judging from the location of the sun, Lazarus had deduced that it was about noon time. That meant that he had either arrived at the pond earlier than he thought he had, or that his training had taken longer than he thought it had. He shrugged this off, however, and lied down on the the log to relaxed a bit before retiring back to his quiet little alley home.

(Total WC= 2295/ 11 Stats)

Learned Water Clone Jutsu

Bump for completion