[Training] Trash of the Titans

Shika stood in the middle of a moderately dense forest to the northwest of Hoshigakure no Sato, punching trees. No, really. The knuckles of her fists were an agitated red from the contact between her hands and the rock solid bark, but heavy splinters and cracks ran up and down the tree in return. It was not an easy battle. Its wood was brittle, cold, and firm, probably because it was grown far up north. The clouds above entirely and completely blanketed the sky, casting strange shadows across the earth. They were a pristine white, and seemed to glow from the sun burning brightly behind them. Single, stray flakes of snow fell from the heavens, landing upon the ground and melting almost instantly. A few landed on her, as well, and when they melted the freezing water blossomed against her skin. It stung, yet seemed to soothe her burning muscles. It hurt to breathe in the cold weather like this, but at least she didn't need to worry about having a heat stroke. A few beams of sunlight had broken through the veil of clouds, touching her skin with and gracing it with a light burn. Unfortunately, UV radiation would still be a problem for her. Getting skin cancer for something as foolish as this would not look good on her record, especially with Chuunin exams coming up. She'd need to be practically flawless in her performance for the next couple of months or else she could kiss the title goodbye.

...Meh, who cared about something as trivial as sunburns, anyhow? She had some medical jutsus up her metaphorical sleeves, and it wasn't like she had a jounin sensei or a genin team to hobble after in the morning. She could rest up during that time, and if it got bad enough she could ask one of the nurses. She continued to punch the trees, channeling light amounts of chakra into her arms. The blows were much more powerful than the ordinary ones that she was able to exchange normally in combat, but they were much more fatiguing, and she'd definitely need to find a way to lessen the damage her knuckles sustained after punching for so long, because it wasn't like she could ask for a break during chuunin exams. Yeah, that'd definitely go over well with the judges. After a few minutes of doing nothing but abusing innocent trees and other assorted flora, she finally stopped to pluck hundreds of tiny splinters and other unknown bits from her knuckles. An occasional red drop fell from them, as they stung angrily in protest to her own physical activity. She cracked them out of habit, causing even more blood to come streaming down and wincing as it did so. Eventually, she relented to her body's own weakness, healing them with an E-ranked healing jutsu that she had picked up at the hospital. At this rate, learning the Arhat Fist: Gangeki would take quite a long time, and she'd never accomplish her goal. She tried think logically, to isolate and make a list of what she was doing in her head. She was only using a little bit of chakra, as her reserves weren't very large. That didn't seem to be root of the problem, though. She was punching as hard as she could, and more importantly, punching correctly. That was most certainly not the problem, if anything, it actually helped. She stroked her chin, deep in thought. Perhaps she was subconsciously pulling her punches, because she was afraid that her knuckles would get hurt, or something bullshit like that? That might have been the answer she was looking for, and it seemed to actually have some sort of scientific base behind it.

So now, the question had changed to 'how do I go about increasing the durability of my fists'? Shika actually had no immediate answer to that, but somehow ended up lying down on the frigid ground below, doing push ups on her knuckles. This seemed like an okay way to start. Besides, she could always add more weight to her back, or start doing it on one hand. Heck, she could even lean against the tree and do it, so that the only thing keeping her upright were her bare fists. Man, but taijutsu was easy. She stretched out her stomach and core, deeply breathing in the frigid air and smiling to herself when flakes of snow got caught in her hair or skin. She was kept warm through chakra circulation alone. If only she had had fire as her affinity, she could keep this up all day. But she guessed lightning was pretty kick ass, too.

After she was satisfied with her stretches, she stretched her shoulders a teeny bit before lying face first on the ground, knuckles on the ground to her sides. She raised herself up, knuckles straining under her own weight. She persisted though. Suddenly, her body dropped, until her nose was hanging two inches above the ground. Raising herself back up again brought waves of pain to her arms and knuckles. "One," she muttered aloud, grinding her teeth. She dropped again, catching herself once again from doing a total faceplant into the almost frozen earth. That would have hurt. "Two," she said after a moment, continuing her push ups of pure agony in this fashion until she reached the number seventy-three. Then, she couldn't help herself and collapsed. She lay on the ground, snow actually sticking to it, as it started to cover the earth. All of the flakes near her melted, causing freezing water to soak through her clothes. There never was a better time to call it a day. Her body couldn't agree more, and eventually she found herself hobbling back to her cozy, heated apartment. Snow was a lot prettier from afar than it was up close, anyhow. Maybe she could rope Souji, Kito, and Hado into getting some hot chocolate and dango...
The next time Shika went outside to abuse some innocent trees, she came better prepared, wearing a fleece jacket and with a few thermoses of a scaldingly heated soup-like liquid. It was certainly one of her... More creative attempts at cooking, and she found herself wondering if she had added too much curry. ...Nah, she was sure that it would work out fine. Her hands flew through a few select hand seals, and the thermoses... thermi? Dissolved into blue particles, going to whatever dimension happened to be utilized by the storage displacement technique. After much thought, candy, and a failed attempt at baking some cookies, Shika decided that she'd keep the tree punching aspect of her training. It was quick, easy, and a good way to check progress. The frozen hardwood tree stood dauntingly above her, snow resting upon its top branches from the snowfall the night before. If she punched it too hard, it would probably slide off and land on her. She scratched the back of her neck, wondering what she should do in a situation like this, before just deciding to roll with it. Snow was nice. Snow was friendly. She could survive.

Drawing back her right hand, she clenched her fingers together and punched the tree as hard as she could. It did noticeably more damage than the last time she had tried, with a crack running up and down from the site of her blow. The resulting vibrations ran up and down the hardwood, and as if tree karma was punishing her, a pound of snow landed on her hair. She just stood in silence for a moment before shaking, rubbing, and eventually just melting the frozen water off her hair. A thin, frigid stream of water ran down her back, and she flinched. Immediately afterwards, a gust drifted by, making her even colder than she was before. Dammit. Why couldn't it be warmer? She tried to channel her anger at the climate into her training, readying her fists.

She sent another half baked Arhat Fist at the tree, the vibrations much more noticeable and the cracks longer this time. She stepped out of the way of the snow this time, the icy substance only landing at her feet rather than atop her head. The water soaked her shoes, but only a few drops of the liquid actually got to her feet. She continued to abuse nature in this fashion, punching as hard as she could and stepping out of the way of falling snow, until her knuckles were nice and bloody and the snow atop the ground was noticeably at least six inches higher than it was previously. She cracked her back and let her stinging hands fall to her sides, drops of red falling to the snow at a slow but constant rate. Using whatever scraps of chakra she had left, she stuck to the surface of the tree, sitting down, and began to work on re-healing her hands. This could not have been healthy, but hey, that was why she spent all that time at the hospital, pestering the nurses into giving her jutsu scrolls. Medical tech definitely had its uses.
Once she was satisfied that her hands weren't permanently crippled, she retrieved a previously storage displaced thermos of whatever her latest half-assed attempt at cooking. She released the surface walking, landing feet-first in the snow. The instant she opened the thermos, an unsettling cloud of steam puffed out from within. It burned her nostrils, and she wrinkled her nose at the scent. Definitely too much curry. She chugged it down rather tentatively, walking down the largely snow-covered path until the region turned hilly. Her feet made crunching noises as she trampled on frozen leaves. Some deviant trails of cold water found their way into her shoes, and she was shivering in spite of herself. She kept walking until her legs began to burn from lactic acid fermentation, until she found herself at the apex of a small-ish hill. A few large boulders stood sentinel, shadows barely visible in the now-harsh sunlight. Shika observed each one in turn, before picking out one that seemed big enough to be a challenge, but not so big that it would be hard to shift. She stood behind it and got into a left forward fighting stance. She felt for her chakra coils, and began to draw from their reserves, feeling her muscles enhance in tune with her pulse. It focused in her right arm, making it tingle and prickle with her power. She drew it back slightly, twisting it for torque, and without warning she slammed it forwards into the rock. The entire rock shifted, and her knuckles throbbed intensely. Her endurance and defense were awful, and she knew that she would definitely need to work on them later on if she wanted to survive, much less think about chuunin rank. Even more suddenly, the rock started to move under the force of her technique. It was slowly at first, just inching along the snow-covered hilltop, but then as gravity began to take effect it was accelerating faster and faster. Snow began to cling to its sides, and suddenly it was covered in white. It left a thick trail behind it of hollowed out snow, and came to a sudden, splintering stop when it collided with the tree she had mercilessly pummeled earlier, knocking it down clearly. Hehe. Oops. She scratched the back of her neck in embarrassment before she realized that no one was watching. Rather than trudging in the snow for any longer, she attempted to use the surface walking technique to balance on top. It was a bit strange, but eventually became easily as she wondered why on earth she hadn't thought of doing this earlier. She jogged down to she site of the impact after getting used to it, taking in the scale of her destruction with a barely held back snicker and another embarrassed neck scratch. She would most definitely call this operation a success, but she'd have to be more careful in the future. It was most definitely an easily spammable attack, one that could be executed again and again, but judging by her angry knuckles, that didn't exactly mean it was a good idea to do so. Her endurance and resistance to physical damage was pretty bad, too, something that would only hinder her in the future. Plus, she felt kind of bad for the tree abuse she'd put the poor plants through earlier in the day. She activated the surface walking technique once more, balancing on the top of the snow, before making her way back to Hidden Star Village, deep in thought.


Shika reclined in the back of a random cafe, hands throbbing slightly and with a steaming cup of dark coffee in front of her. A little bit of steam rose from the porcelain thing, curling artistically beneath the artificial lights hanging above. The smell made her crack a grin, and she put her hands behind the back of her head as she studied a small scroll laid haphazardly across the table next to her beverage.

It contained a little bit of information regarding the Mass Shift technique, a space-time jutsu she had attempted to learn earlier, but for whatever reason never polished it up. Fortunately, the only necessary hand seal was rat (which was also her least favorite hand seal, due to the awkward and stretched feeling it gave her fingers). A small diagram beneath a depiction of the rat hand seal demonstrated the required chakra flow, something that was always needlessly complicated and confusing when it came to space-time techniques. Her hands morphed into her least favorite hand seal, and she felt her chakra spark and jolt, wrapping itself lightly around her coffee cup.

One of the waitresses approached her from the left, stopping before her table. She noticed that she was particularly interested in the steel head band wrapped around her neck, advertising her as a registered ninja of Hoshigakure no Sato.

"Ma'am, I'm afraid that I'll have to ask you to leave the premises." she spoke with a clipped tone. Shika put a metaphorical hand to her chin. She was probably nervous. How to diffuse the tension...?

"Ah, apologies," she spoke, as the porcelain cup began to glow with a faint golden light. "I assumed that since the technique I was practicing was rather weak, and pretty much incapable of causing any large-scale damage, it would be okay to try it indoors. If it bothers you that much, I'll stop."

The waitress seemed put off by her polite tone, probably expecting something much more informal and rugged. She tilted her head. "As long as you understand that any jutsu-related mess you make is to be cleaned by you," the waitress said slowly, "I don't see a problem with it."

Inwardly, Shika cheered, and the cup slowly moved towards her, liquid jostling lightly inside.
Shika was not afraid (and was actually quite proud) to admit that she had never once been in contact with a genjutsu. Back when she was a rogue, all of her targets were wanted criminals and thugs, most who had never even practiced with the illusion arts to begin with. Even she had no idea what exactly a genjutsu was until recently, a few days after being certified as a capable genin. From what she was able to read up on, however, they sounded like they could escalate to be pretty powerful. And that was a problem. She recalled talking to a retired chuunin earlier about the subject. He said it affected, specifically, chakra in the brain. Therefore, in theory all one would need to do is disrupt their own flow of chakra enough to break the genjutsu, similar to how horses could throw off unwanted riders.

The only problem was that Shika really didn't want to mess to much with her brain chakra. She had no idea how any of it worked, and there was a high chance that she could severely mess something up or damage something beyond repair. Deciding that it was best to ask someone rather than to silently mope in her own pride, Shika stood up and wandered close to the academy. One of the instructors came to her almost immediately, clearly on a lunch break or something. She raised her hand and waved. His eyebrow raised as he gestured for her to talk.

"So... Uhhh, how does one break out of a genjutsu? I know that you have to disrupt your chakra flow, but no-one ever really covered it for me," she scratched the back of her neck in embarrassment, fingers touching the edges of her headband. He stared at her for a moment, eyes studying her and briefly focusing on the star emblem wrapped around her neck. He nodded.

"Sure, why not?" he replied in a surprisingly soft voice, "Knowledge is power, after all. Oh, and the seal is tiger."

"Wait, what-" Before she could request further clarification, the world went dark around her. She appeared to be standing in an endless void of black, losing all feeling in her limbs. It was clearly and obviously a genjutsu. Suddenly, the instructor's voice rang out in her head.

The best way to learn is by doing. I am going to leave the academy, seeing as it is my lunch hour, and whether or not you break out by the time I get back is entirely up to you. Suddenly, what he said about the tiger seal made sense. Then she registered what he just said (thought?) and fought back an indignant huff.

She took in a deep breath, fingers folding into the tiger seal. Her chakra seemed to jump at the action, ready for use, and she attempted to guide it, gently nudging until it flared brightly. Without warning, the darkened world cracked and warped until she was standing back at the academy. And judging by the sunlight, only a few minutes had passed. That's right, I'm fabulous. She strolled off casually to her favorite dango shop, when she noticed the instructor in passing. She gave him a smirk and a thumbs up before walking away.

[la exit]

[2104/2100 word goal for Arhat Fist (http://naruto-role-play-rpg.forumotion.com/t22885-v6-arhat-fist-gangeki)]
[370/340 word goal for finishing up Mass Shift, as I did the other 660 words on a mission thread... somewhere (http://naruto-role-play-rpg.forumotion.com/t26785-mass-shift?highlight=mass+shift)]
[536/500 word goal for Genjutsu Release (http://naruto-role-play-rpg.forumotion.com/t22313-genjutsu-release)]

Damn, you fab. Approved.