Stronger, faster, better...

The time for the genin exams was fast approaching and Togirama Hyuuga was fairly confident that his name would be put forward this time round to take the exams. The young Hyuuga had been doing a lot of training recently and while he was confident he would be able to perform the required jutsu after a little fine tuning he was not so sure that he was strong enough, fast enough or hardy enough to be an active ninja just quite yet. Togi had therefore decided to intensify his training regime.
 
Togi had woken up early today to begin his new training regime, it was still dark as night outside not that the blind Hyuuga could see. Togi had dressed in his usual set of his smart light grey robes and was quickly preparing a light breakfast consisting of rice and grilled fish. Quickly pecking at his food Togi made short work of it before placing his plate and chop sticks to one side. Togi then retrieved two weapon pouches that he had purchased the day before and secured them to his legs. These pouches contained a set of shuriken and kunai (not Togi's favourite weapons but they would serve well enough for training purposes) as well as a couple of smoke bombs and explosive tags that he had no intention of wasting during training. Togi then retrieved a small box that he filled with rice and placed it next to a few water canteens filled with water. Togi then unrolled a large piece of parchment. Drawing an inkpen Togi made a few quick strokes drawing a couple of seals on the paper. Togi then focussed his chakra in to his hand and pushed it out in to the seals he had drawn on the parchment, in a puff of smoke the items then vanished as the symbols seemed to glow briefly on the page. Rolling up the scroll Togi then tucked it away in to his robes. Picking up yet another water canteen Togi then secured it to his belt before exiting the small sandstone building that he called home.
 
Togi began his day of training with a run, the sun had not yet risen and it was still cool out making it the perfect time for such training. Bringing his hands together Togi formed his favourite seal for molding chakra the tiger seal. Gathering the chakra in his stomach Togi then moulded and directed the chakra to his head to make sure that his chakra senses were active and at their sharpest. If the blind ninja was going to be running around the village he did not want to blindly run in to anyone or anything or even blindly run off of anything!
 
Starting at a somewhat slow pace for a ninja Togi jogged towards the general direction of the training grounds. At this time of the day there were not many people about another reason why Togi had chosen this time of day for his run however he passed a few merchants out and about as they prepared to set up their stalls and with his chakra senses active he detected the bright blue beacons of chakra that was the tell tell sign of ninja being about either on patrol protecting the village or performing their own exercise/ training regimes. Togi however for the most part ignored these presences only paying attention to them so much so that he did not run in to them. Once he was getting close to the training grounds Togi picked up the pace a bit and broke in to a full on run, instead of heading for a particular training ground Togi began to circle them as he began to run laps around them. Running laps was a rather simple exercise but it was one that was favoured by Taijutsu types and as a Hyuuga Togi knew that he could not let his taijutsu ability slip and fall too badly.
 
After several laps of the training grounds Togi was somewhat out of breath and sweating quite badly. At this point Togi decided to take a break and pulling the first water canteen from his hip and drunk deeply. By now Togi could feel the first rays of the desert sun shining down on his face signifying that the sun had now risen. 'I need to gather my energy for the next challenge but I can't rest completely...' Togi thought to himself as he fastened the canteen of water back to his belt. 'Ok hand seal practise then, it’s not too intense so I should still be able to gather my strength...' Togi silently added.
 
"Bird, Boar, Dog, Dragon, Ox, Tiger, Snake, Rat, Horse, Monkey, Hare, Ram." Togi recited as he ran through all twelve hand seals without applying chakra. Togi then repeated these twelve seals again and again and again each time slightly increasing the speed that he was doing it at. Togi kept this up until his hands began to cramp up.
 
By the time that his hands had begun to cramp the rest of his body had begun to recover and the sun had fully risen, Togi therefore moved on to the next portion of his workout. Dropping to the ground Togi began a set of situps then when his hands were feeling better he moved on to push ups and finally star jumps. The desert heat made these exercises extra tough and by the end of the workout routine Togi was covered in a layer of sweat and close to over heating. Grabbing the water canteen from his belt Togi took a deep gulp before pouring the remnants over his head and placing the canteen back on his belt. With this done Togi jogged fourth once again this time heading for a specific training ground.
 
The training ground that Togi had chosen was somewhat of an obstacle course it consisted of a climbing wall followed by a high series vertical stone pillars that had to be jumped between, a thin balancing beam, monkey bars and then spring loaded platforms that would snap open as soon as pressure was applied. The course then ended with a set of targets and training dummies. Togi had used this particular training ground on field trips from the academy, each time he had found it rather challenging and it was for this reason that Togi had chosen it as he really wanted to push himself.
 
Togi hit the training course at a run leaping straight up at climbing wall, while the young Hyuuga could have used chakra to adhere to the wall and run straight up it the purpose of today's training was to improve Togi's physical strength, speed and endurance and not his chakra. Togi therefore grabbed hold of a handhold and began to scramble up the wall. Togi found this activity particularly difficult as not only was Togi not that physically strong for a ninja but Togi's chakra sense only told him that there was a large structure in front of him that appeared as a dark monolith to his chakra vision. The finer details such as hand holds and foot holds were a lot harder to make out and Togi found himself searching for them half with his chakra vison and half purely relying on his sense of touch. The amount of time it took for Togi to climb the wall was likely no where near a record for an academy student let alone a ninja but he made his way to the top eventually.  ’I need to work at this section of the course if memories serves when the academy came here I was one of the last to reach the top and I think my time has only just improved…’ Togi thought to himself.
 
Next came the stone pillars these Togi dealt with much more quickly making a decent time as he hopped from one stone to the next carefully picking his landing before leaping on to the next. The leaps were nothing compared to what a veteran ninja could achieve but for an average civilian they were quite sizeable.
 
Reaching the balancing beam Togi paused briefly before taking a deep breath. Togi knew that he had decent balance however he was also aware that the balance beam was quite narrow and it was located quite high up. Moving quickly Togi almost dashed straight across the beam, the speed at which he moved seemed to prevent him from wobbling and fortunately the academy student did not put a foot wrong. ’I wonder if I could see how high up I was like everyone else does if this would be more difficult?’ Togi idly thought to himself.
 
Next came the monkey bars and once again Togi struggled as he did not possess the greatest of upper body strength. Togi made his way across the obstacle without incident though he did feel like his arms were about to give out once or twice and but once again the speed at which the young Hyuuga completed this section of the course was not much to be proud of.
 
Once again Togi then came to something that he was better at. The trick to the spring loaded platforms was to move swiftly and keep moving. Though Togi did not realise it yet for an academy student he was fast, his speed was even decent for a newly graduated so when Togi kept moving the platforms did not trigger until after he had moved on to the next. A couple of times these came pretty close due to the young Hyuuga’s hesitation rather than his lack of speed but he made it to the end unscathed. ’That was close…’ Togi silently exclaimed with a sigh of relief once that section of the course was completed.
 
Sliding down the end of a wooden ramp Togi came to the end of the obstacle section of the course and was immediately greeted by the random assortment of targets and training dummies. Reaching in to his weapon pouches Togi drew two kunai, one from each pouch and held them one per hand. Concentrating Togi summoned chakra from his core and began to channel it to his hands before passing it straight in to the kunai, in response the two kunai began to glow with a soft blue light. Togi then whipped both hands forwards and let the kunai fly. The projectiles slammed in to two different targets, the kunai didn’t hit dead centre but to score two separate hits at once was not bad for an academy student. Reaching back in to his pouches Togi drew another two kunai, Togi took a moment to note that these were not his favourite weapons to use but he had not yet been able to gather a set of senbon to use. Refocusing on the task at hand Togi channelled his chakra once again causing the weapons to glow. Togi then threw the two kunai in opposite directions once again hitting another two targets without even looking… not that the blind Hyuuga ever truly looked at his targets. Satisfied with his ability to channel chakra in to his weapons Togi then went in to rapid fire mode for his ranged weapons practice one by one drawing weapons from his pouch and launching them in to a target until both pouches were empty of both shuriken and kunai. Togi had managed to hit a target each time though the amount of weapons that hit dead centre of the target was not that high. ’Acceptable but could do with some improvement…’ Togi silently noted.
 
Now depleted of ranged weapons Togi then charged in to engage the combat dummies in hand to hand combat. Charging up to the closest of the dummies Togi dropped low in to the opening stance of the gentle fist and began to unleash a rapid barrage of open palmed strikes against the wooden replicas. Togi’s strikes were fast and accurate and he favoured striking the midsections of the dummies. If this had been real combat the chakra enhanced blows of the gentle fist would likely have done some serious internal damage against an opponent.  Jumping up the young Hyuuga then kicked out striking the dummy he was facing in the head before pushing off and going into a backflip before landing back on his feet. The manoeuvre wasn’t the smoothest ever since Togi did not pull off such acrobatics often and it might have left him open to attack but against a combat dummy it worked well enough. Togi then turned and charged forwards at another dummy, this time Togi went in to a slide and as he passed he tapped the right knee and ankle of the dummy in a move that would likely had disabled a real opponent but to ensure this Togi then swept his legs striking the legs of the dummy in a way that would have swept it off of its feet if it wasn’t connected to the ground. Togi winced slightly at this action as his shins hit the hard wooden shins of the dummy.
Climbing back to his feet Togi took a deep breath and steeled himself then rushing forwards for one final time he charged down a third combat dummy. His hands then became a blur (well from a civilian’s perspective atleast) as he lashed out at the wooden replica with a rapid flurry of blows repeatedly striking the torso. Keeping up the attack for aslong as he could manage, Togi kept going until he felt the wall hitting him and then he pushed past it keeping up the attack for a little longer and testing his limits.
By the time that Togi’s arms literally had no strength left in them Togi took a step back from the dummies and bowed.  ’That was quite the workout… If I follow this routine on a regular basis hopefully I should be able to build my speed and strength up enough to actually be worthy of being a ninja…' Togi thought to himself before making his way over to the start of the course and back to the climbing wall which was now providing shade from the heat of the sun.
 
Pulling out a rolled up scroll from inside his robe Togi unfurled the scroll and channeled a little of his chakra in to it unsealing a second water canteen, Togi then took a big drink before sitting cross legged in the shade. Assuming a meditative pose with his hands on his lap palms up as he relaxed and slipped in to meditation to recover his energy.
 

After sitting in the shade meditating for quite some time Togi finally felt refreshed. Taking another few sips from the unsealed canteen Togi attached it to his belt and resealed the empty canteen that he had back in to the scroll before tucking the scroll in to the inside of his robe.  Togi then jogged out of the training ground intent on doing a few more laps before heading home.

(TWC: 2504 claiming 12 stat points)