1.2..3...(Training)

It was his first day in Hoshigakure. Today, he had already been dragged to the Hoshikage’s quarters to reveal his identity to the man, harassed by upper level shinobi and peered at by all the villagers he had passed in the process. It seemed as if today’s was one of the better beginnings he had to his days. There seemed to be an unsettling attitude directed towards Pein’s lack of details he provided with the kage, almost as if the kage was growing impatient with the genin. But nevertheless, he continued to talk to Pein and ask him questions that he likely knew Pein wasn’t planning on answering. But they just kept coming. It seemed as if the kage was just not getting the hint that Pein was not going to budge. Either that, or he had figured that perhaps Pein would offer a small amount of insight on who he was and where he had come from.

But Pein did not budge. If he were to tell his identity to anyone, it would make him a target. Whoever the attackers on the Yurigakure and its sister villages were, they would likely feel like the job wasn’t done by leaving Pein alive. Therefore, for his own safety, Pein wouldn’t respond. He would only answer in shortness, saying things that were extremely vague and gave basic information. He didn’t even go as far as telling his last name to anyone, for it would be a large indicator of who he was, where he was from and what he was capable of. It was just in his best interest to keep to himself.
The Hoshikage realized that Pein wasn’t going to talk more about himself, but it seemed he also realized that Pein had a reason to it.

He remembered the long pause the leader took, almost as if he was analyzing the situation and trying to figure out the best way of handling Pein was. The pause was long. And quiet. It gave Pein time to think though. He began to consider if Hoshigakure was partially responsible for the attacks on Yurigakure. If that were the case, then he would have his vengeance. But not now. He wasn’t ready now, physically nor mentally. Additionally, he didn’t even know if they were the reason why his village and family were all dead, so there would be no point in taking revenge on then. No. He knew he would have to wait. He would have to gather information, grow in strength, but most importantly he would have to unlock his potential power. Pein knew it would not come easy though. There would have to be the process of learning the prerequisite element of wind, which he actually had no experience with. In his home village, he recalled there being several shinobi of note who did harness the wind release, yet he had never embraced it himself. Instead, his father had worked on instructing him in the arts of the water release. He showed Pein what it was like to use the jutsu and explained the concepts of it. 

With that being said, he felt rather confident in his potential abilities with the water release, but he was not so sure about the fuuton. He did not know about its mechanics and how to apply it. There was no provided knowledge regarding its jutsu. To be truthful, Pein had never even seen the wind release in action. But it had to have been a powerful one, right? Especially if his clan’s powerful ability had the fuuton as one if its components.

His thought process was interrupted when the kage had seemed to have come to a conclusion on what to do with Pein. He informed Pein that he wanted to know more about him but he knew that Pein was not going to reveal anything. Therefore, he told Pein that he would be keeping a close eye on him for the protection of the village and its people. Next, he told Pein that if he were to reside in Hoshigakure, he would need to provide some type of insurance that he was loyal. He told Pein that he would need to serve as a shinobi of the village and protect it and its people from harm. Yet he would not have the free reigns that a normal shinobi would have, instead he would have to be monitored by an upper ranked shinobi. Pein understood the first part, for the safety and concern of the village was within the Hoshikage’s jurisdiction. However, when he began to say that he would need Pein to submit to constant surveillance being conducted on him, his face would frown. Seemingly out of sheer disrespect, Pein wanted to interject so badly. Yet he knew that if he were to say anything about the unfairness of being monitored, it would draw suspicion to himself. For all the kage knew, Pein was just a private person and had nothing to hide. And that’s how he wanted and needed to keep it. Reluctantly, he nodded his head to the orders of the kage, yet did not even know why he was nodding. It took all of his willpower and better judgment to stop himself from just walking out of the office and leaving the village, but the only thing that held him back was the resources. He planned on draining Hoshigakure of all the information he could before he left. He needed to learn jutsu, history, their involvement in the destruction of the Yurigakure and if they weren’t involved, he needed to know who was. But as he reminded himself earlier, all of this would have to come in due time. For now, all he could do was nod.

It seemed as if the Hoshikage continued to speak for quite some time after Pein finished nodding, until finally coming to a conclusion. He ended his long rant and sent Pein on his way. He thanked Pein for his compliance, and all Pein could offer in exchange was a *hmph*. Was it disrespectful of Pein? Sure. But it did not matter. He had been wronged too, and he knew that speaking up would only end him up being more wronged. There was no way to win the current battle, so Pein turned his eyes on the war as a whole. Leaving the Hoshikage’s office, Pein began walking down the stairs exiting him to the base of the Hoshikage’s building. He had felt slightly defeat, but strangely satisfied. He knew that there would likely be some type of repercussions or consequences for him not providing information to the man who controlled the land he was in, but he felt he still got off rather easy. The only thing he had actually gotten was a shinobi who would be watching his movements. But Pein was smart. He knew that he would have to outsmart the shinobi, but the tricky part would be figuring out how to do so. The only reason why he actually wanted to have some privacy was so that he could practice his ice release without having the shinobi see. He didn’t want his identity to be revealed through someone watching his moves, so he would have to go somewhere private to train when he would finally begin practicing his ice release. But once again, he reminded himself to start off small. He would need to begin with the wind release.

And so, Pein would begin walking around the village seeking to find a place to train. 

(WC: 1254)

Wind Release: 1254/4000
Ice Release: 0/1000

As he walked about the village, he scouted out potential places for him to train. Each of the buildings looked inhabited, none of them quite so friendly to begin an intensive training session in. There was the ninja academy that would likely have an area devoted for the students to go outside and practice their jutsu, but that was beneath Pein. It would make him feel like nothing much than a child and the most basic level shinobi. He would not go there. Continuing to walk about the village, he started to reflect on the village itself. It seemed well built and exponentially larger than the small village he lived in. He wondered if the inhabitants had ever felt the fear like he had when he was younger, if they ever stared certain death in the eyes yet somehow escaped and if they had ever been posed with defending their village with the ultimatum of death occurring. Likely they didn’t. No one would understand what Pein had been through, so there was truly no point in even trying to communicate such a thing to these people. They were different, they were privileged. But not Pein, if anything he felt cursed. Cursed to be the last remaining survivor from his village, cursed to be alone in the world, and worst of all cursed to be stuck in a village that planned on monitoring each and every single one of his actions. But he would have to repress these feelings, just as he did with all of the other ones. He would repress and reflect on them, but never project them. No one would understand, so it was futile to try to make them. As he thought, he finally came upon an area that looked suitable enough for him to train, however it also looked as if everyone in the village came here regularly to train. It was Hoshigakure’s training grounds. As much as he did not want to train with or even around multiple other shinobis, it was looking as if it was his best bet to come here.

Entering the training grounds, he walked past what seemed like groups of shinobi training together. Each were within a team of three and they all seemed to have different specialties. Some seemed to be well versed in taijutsu, some were like Pein and advanced in ninjutsu but there were even a handful that were utilizing genjutsu. The diversity of the team would probably reflect the success of the team. Pein didn’t believe in these teams though, instead he would kind of just roll his eyes at the thought and sight of them and continue about his way. But he was not the only person to notice things, it was a two way street. All of the shinobi seemed to eye Pein as he walked throughout the training grounds, almost like they knew that he didn’t belong here. Some bore intensity in their eyes, seeming to try to project fear into Pein, but Pein feared no man. Others seemed to try to exchange a friendly glance at him, but he would just shake it off. He wasn’t much of the making friends type of person. When he finally found a clear, open spot away from all of the other shinobi, he deemed it worthy. He sat upon the ground and began to meditate. Clearing his mind, it seemed like all of the thoughts in his head were being deposited in some sort of internal briefcase. One by one, his mind became empty, like he forgot about his history, his feelings and his family. When his mind was finally empty, he began to focus his concentration upon the chakra flowing throughout his body. He kept his breathing quite steady and slow. With his mind clear, chakra focused and his breathing steady he would begin to stretch. He believed that it was most important to ensure that he was loose and limber before forcing his body to execute any strenuous activities. It was something that his father had taught him when he was younger. The two would go out to train in the backyard, practicing the most miniscule things but perfecting them. It was important to master the basic foundations of using jutsu and sparring before one actually used the jutsu or sparred; otherwise you could risk not doing the jutsu correctly, losing a spar or even pulling a muscle. Therefore, Pein would continue his process.

He began with pivoting his right foot forward and his left backwards, bending his knees and stretching out his legs to the point where his right knee formed a ninety degree angle with his calf and his left leg was extended with his knee on the floor. His hands would both be pressed against his right thigh as he held the stretch for thirty seconds. When that was finished, he switched. Now his left leg was forward, right backwards, left knee parallel with his calf and right leg extended and on the floor. His hands were in the same position as before but were now pressed on his left thigh. He again held this stretch for thirty seconds then released. He now stood up straight and placed his feet together. Bringing his hands together in line, he bent over slowly and began reaching for his toes. As he did so, he exhaled a breath while continuing to approach his toes. When he finally touched them, he held them and breathed at a constant rate while holding the position. “1.2..3…” he would begin to count internally until finally reaching thirty. When that would finish, he would begin the next set of stretches. The next set of stretches was intended to stretch his arms. As the stretching process continued, he incorporated hamstring, quad, back, chest, neck and abdominal stretches all until his body felt ready. He returned to his feet and closed his eyes, thinking on the words of his father when he had learned to use the water release. His father told him that he had to allow his subconscious and his chakra to take over his body momentarily. Then allow that chakra to project out to the water surrounding him and feel it, like really feel it. He wanted his chakra to mix with the chakra of the natural water. It needed to familiarize itself with it, become acquainted so much so that it seemed like second nature to Pein. The process of learning wind release would have to be quite similar to that, allowing his soul to feel out the wind around him to let him understand that chakra more. Continuing to reflect, he thought about the next step. After searching out for the water’s chakra, his father instructed Pein to attempt to mix it with his chakra, hone it and bring it back toward his body. This seemed like the difficult part. Attempting to incorporate nature into his own body and bring it under his control was tough for Pein, but he knew that it was a necessary part. Thinking about it, perhaps this would be easier than when he had learned the water release. The water release was his first element, and he had no experience with doing something like that. But since the wind release would be his second time harnessing an element, maybe it would be easier since he had already done something like it before.

Now he began to think. Pein would have to apply the same techniques his father taught him with the water release but to the wind release. Not only would he have to apply those techniques, but he would have to modify them to the point that it was suited for the wind specifically. Luckily for him, he could actually feel the wind blowing on him. He could feel the energy it had as it passed through his hair. He could even hear it when it picked up intensively. This would be different than when he extended his soul to the water, for he could not physically feel it. Instead he truly had to reach out for it with his chakra. But now the time for thinking was over, he wanted to apply this concept. With his eyes still closed, he began to break off his physical connection with the world. He focused not on his feet touching the floor and the sounds of training off in the distance. He brought his hands up to the center of his chest. Exhaling, he started to heighten his chakra. He could feel it flowing through the gates of his body, passing from his shoulders to his arms, waist to his legs, legs to feet and etc. With this focus in mind, he began to try to extend it to branch out and away from his body. In the process, he could feel the chakra of his surroundings. There was the wind which blew against him, as if it wanted to carry him away with it. But beyond the physicality of the wind was the chakra itself. It was sharp. Almost as if it had been cutting away at Pein’s chakra as it tried to extend from his body. So he would have to adapt. He built up the chakra more and more that was expelling from is body, and he began to fortify it. It grew harder and thus more impervious to the wind. Now his chakra was flowing from out of his body to the wind. It did not mix however, instead the two simply existed together. This was not what was supposed to be happening. As he could not make his chakra mix with the wind’s he grew frustrated and thus broke his focus. He opened his eyes again and had sweat dripped from his forehead. As the perspiration traveled down his forehead, it passed his cheekbone and rolled down his jawline. It finally dripped and left his body from his chin, where it would fall the ground just below his feet.

No longer breathing in a constant fashion, Pein was unsure of what exactly went wrong. He had tried to maintain his focus the whole time, but it seemed as if it was not his focus that was preventing his chakra from mixing with the wind’s. Instead it seemed more like his chakra not being accepted of the wind. His chakra had been more water based at this point, since he had initially infused it with the water’s chakra. Thus it made his own more calm in nature. His calm chakra attempting to mix with the fierce, quick and sharp chakra of wind seemed to be an unlikely combination. However, he would have to learn to adapt in order to successfully use this element. He thought back to when he struggled against incorporating the water’s chakra into his own. The main problem had been that he did not know what his chakra was in nature. It was more docile. The docile Pein intermingling with the gentle water seemed to be a different type of adjustment, but it was not difficult. Instead, it seemed as if his personality was more willing to accept the chakra into his own. His father had told him that he would have to search within himself in order to combine the water chakra into his own natural chakra. Thus, Pein did as he instructed. He focused his feelings and thoughts as a young shinobi in practice and attempted to make them gentler. By doing so, it seemed as if the water from outside began to extend its own chakra in the process and meet with Pein’s. After extensive training, he was finally able to combine his own with the water’s.


With that being reflected on, Pein realized what he would have to do. He would have to attempt to not resist the wind’s sharp chakra, but instead mold his own to be more accepting of it. But the only problem was how. With his current chakra, it was more tranquil in nature. His chakra flowed through his body like water going through a current, giving his body much more flow. But with the wind’s chakra, it was a whole different ball park. The wind didn’t seem to take on the same properties as the water did. It did not rest in whatever surrounding it, instead it was wild and unpredictable. Not like water. Water seemed to travel throughout whatever path it was paved and would take on the shape of the container it held. The wind would be different, so Pein would have to treat it differently. He would have to adapt yet again. Originally, the way he thought that he would have to do so was by fortifying his chakra to resist the cuts upon it from the sharp wind slashing against it. But what he would have to do, is focus on his feelings and thoughts to become more wild, sharp and ruthless rather than calm in order to be accepting of the wind’s wild nature. And so he would begin.

He began to reflect on his feelings that he had repressed for quite some time.

(WC: 2184)

Wind Release: 3438/4000 
Ice Release: 0/1000

He thought back to the massacre of his village and how relentless the attackers were. He thought back to how they did not care whether or not they murdered a young boy’s parents in front of him. The relentlessness they upheld by leaving the boy to defend for himself in a world in which everything he knew was destroyed. But he also thought about the fierceness of his father when defending against the attackers. After just fighting off attackers from the main village of Yukigakure, he had come back to the small sister village to defend his people from it as well. He watched as his father held off four attackers, putting down all of them but becoming overwhelmed by them as more and more reinforcements started to flood the village. He saw his father release several ice techniques that would go on to impale some attackers but could not defend against all of them. They played the numbers game and murdered his father who had been so valiantly defending him and his mother. Then they killed his mother with no remorse whatsoever. Pein remembered that day so clearly in his head, all the fear he had instilled within him. And so he would go on to harness that fear and morph it into something useful. Something that he could use to fuel his power. He would sharpen that fear into anger and better himself through it. And now, with those thoughts and feelings resurfacing inside his mind, it was time for him to utilize them.

He closed his eyes once more and prepared to heighten his chakra. Once again feeling the chakra flow through his body like a river, he employed his emotion and feelings into that chakra. It no longer transitioned through his body like a calm stream. No, now it was different. It coursed through his veins and limbs like a rapid river, crashing against the walls of his skin and pulsing from each tenketsu to another. With that quick flowing chakra traveling throughout his body, it was now time to release it into the wind in order to mix and mingle with the wind’s chakra. He exerted it, almost explosively, as it all seemed to pour from his body and intertwine itself with the wind. The wind continued to violently cut against his chakra, whirling and wizzing past him in the process. His chakra was different this time. No longer was it attempting to defend itself against the chakra, for the wind had not been attacking him. This time, his chakra had taken on the form of a sharp, durable and quick kind, equally wild in nature, but at the same time decisive. As the wind’s chakra began to fly through his own, the two finally began to meet and it seemed as if a battle had begun. Struggling to maintain his concentration, he could feel the fatigue imposed upon his body by his chakra struggled to harness the wind’s. As the battle waged on, finally his chakra seemed to take the advantage and begin to almost absorb the wind’s chakra. Throughout the process, Pein could feel himself undergoing some sort of transition, almost as if not only his chakra was changing from taking on the wind but he was changing as well. His chakra felt fuller, stronger as he began to absorb it. Until finally, he felt the chakra reserves meet its maximum capacity and begin to swell in the process. He reverted his chakra back inside his body and now it felt different. He could feel the wind, water and his own chakra’s distinctively mixing with each other and storing themselves throughout the body. He could feel it, he felt stronger. He did it.

But now came the next step, he would have to manipulate his chakra with the elements he was accustomed to to the point of them working in harmony, and thus harnessing the ice release affinity in the process. He now had to remember the wise words of his father once more before he would be able to even attempt this. Pein clearly remembered the words of his father on that day where they would start the training, for it had been some of the last words his father had ever spoken to him. He had told Pein that in order to understand the ice release of their Yuki clan, he would have to understand the individual components making up the element. First, there was water. Water provided the basis of the element. Because of the fact that ice was just frozen water, ice could not exist without water. It would have to decrease dramatically in temperature yet retain some of the chemical and physical properties of water.  But there was also the wind component. The wind would serve as the cooling agent. By providing a consistent and steady supply of the cold and sharp wind, the water would be able to cool and eventually freeze all the way to its core. With the physical descriptions of the element being touched on, his father went further in depth to explain the chakra aspect of it all. Creating and using ice to one’s will were two different things though. In order to use the ice release, the user would have to focus his chakra and adapt it just as he did when learning the elements that composed the ice. With the different styles of chakra in nature flowing through the user’s body, the user would have to centralize all of them to one sharp, cold, flowing yet gentle chakra. It would have to be fierce, prepared to pierce whatever the target must be. It would have to be hard and thoroughly imbued with chakra in order to endure whatever may come its way, specifically extreme heat. Only after the user understood this would he be able to utilize the ice release. Pein recalled his father’s words down to the tee. He missed his father, but he could not allow himself to dwell on those thoughts for too long, for it would break his concentration. Instead he would have to siphon and summon the feelings and emotion from those thoughts and use them to fuel his ability. He once again broke himself from the physical world and began to focus heavily on his chakra.

His eyes had still been closed from when he had learned the wind release element, for he did not want to distract himself with the world occurring behind him. Instead now, Pein worked his way to the floor. He lowered his body until his feet were planted on the ground, his knees up and his bottom resting upon the floor. Now he would cross his legs, the right over the left, and rest his hands upon his knees which pointed outward from his body. Pein was in his meditational stance. The shinobi that Pein had passed earlier all seemed to point fingers and laugh at Pein, for it seemed as if he had come to the training grounds for the purpose of meditating which was so backwards to them. But to Pein, it made sense. Additionally, he could not even hear the ridicule from the other shinobi as he had toned out the sounds from the outside world. The only thing that he could hear was the sound of the chakra mixing. The water seemed to crash upon the walls of his body while the wind seemed to whirl about it. The two mixed together, causing the water to increase in speed and whirl through his body and the wind began to calm down and crash inside his body. Feeling this combination of the chakra working hand in hand together, he started to think about the next process. Since the two chakras had been combined and started to adapt the other’s respective qualities, his own in turn began to change. It was a medley of his own original chakra but now infused with wind and water elemental affinities. Now it was time to force the ice release to develop. The only thing that was left to do was to cool the water with the wind. As he forced the wind chakra to blow over the water, he continuously decreased the temperature of the wind and also increased the wind flow to blow over. Additionally he loosened and calmed the intensity of the water, that way it would be more susceptible to freezing. As he forced these two chakra types to morph he could feel the ice beginning to mold. It got colder and colder, starting to freeze over until the two chakras seemed to create a third. Almost like a venn - diagram forming, causing the third overlapping portion to be a mixture of the two. This chakra was different than the two, but almost similar. It was cold, fierce yet simultaneously gentle and sharp. But now he had successfully felt it. He knew that he could harness the power of the ice release, and he would now be able to in turn apply it. However, he felt extremely fatigued at this point. So instead of continuing his training and begin to learn jutsu of each element, instead he stood up and opened his eyes. He began to leave out of the training grounds, with confidence. He disregarded the shinobi in the training grounds watching him, he disregarded the thoughts that clouded his head, and he disregarded the shinobi attempting to hide in secrecy while collecting information on him.


[Exit]

(WC: 1581)

Wind Release:4000/4000
Ice Release: 1019/1000

Total Word Count: 5019

Claiming 25 stat points, Wind Release and Ice Release

I thought advanced elements only need 1000 words though? Is everything else approved though including the ice release process? If so, could I make the next 1000 words be him beginning to learn a jutsu just because the content from this post kind of alludes to him understanding the element now.