Breathe Easy

Sat May 28, 2016 10:31 am

Sakaiza had recently been training extensively and knew that he was getting stronger and stronger. From his experiences with the other shinobi in his village, he was not sure how he ranked though. He could only speculate that he had trained harder than the other members of his team, although Nobu was quickly approaching his level. Nobu's consistent training specifically in taijutsu only made him quite the rival. And with his bijuu hidden in his body, he could easily surpass Sakaiza at any point. Therefore, Sakaiza had to push himself. More motivation for him to push forward was his recent encounters with Ryu Reinhard, who easily toyed with Sakaiza. He had simply dodged all of his attacks and hit Sakaiza with much ease while still dealing with Salzem. Speaking of Salzem, Sakaiza had recently had quite the high intensity spar with him. Despite the constant high degree of effort Sakaiza put in, he could only defend against Salzem's attacks and did not land a single blow. But it did make him feel better about himself and his progress considering the fact that Salzem only landed a single strike on Sakaiza. But he couldn't help but wonder if Salzem had been holding back the whole time. He couldn't have been holding back though, he had come to Sakaiza and told him that he wanted to have one last spar with him before he left the village. However he couldn't shake the thought that Salzem had not been giving the spar his all. But to be honest, who actually gave spars their all? True shinobi would not hold back, but that extra edge would always seem to come out and blossom when their life was on the line.

As he left the training grounds with those thoughts in mind, he began kicking rocks. His head was hanging down, hands in his pockets and feet just kicking the rocks and trotting along. He was slightly bothered with the thoughts he had in mind. What if all of the training he had done up until now was futile and what if he was constantly being outdone by his peers? It was just quite the daunting, heavy thought on his mind. He told himself that he would be the greatest Hyuuga ever, and as of right now he felt as if he were on track for doing so. But he also wanted to begin the Hyuuga branch family within Sunagakure. It would require more than just being the greatest Hyuuga ever, he would have to be the greatest shinobi ever. He'd had to surpass his peers: Raizuko, Ryu, Salzem, Nobu, Giichi and even the Kazekage Koroshi. But this would require constant dedication, effort and persistence. Otherwise, he would not be able to trust himself with his abilities and thus would fail in the process. So, he would have to strive to not only maintain but to progress also. One day he would be the best. Continuing to kick the rocks and think, Sakaiza stopped in place. He didn't stop to think, for he did that as he walked. Instead, he stopped because of what was in front of him. There stood a man who was stationary. His eyes had met Sakaiza's and the two stood there deadlocked in gaze. Almost as if they had been communicating telepathically.

From Sakaiza's perspective, he saw a mysterious man, drenched in a black trench coat which hung all the way down to his ankles. He had a black hat on and looked rather ominous.The way his head was angled, Sakaiza could not see the man's face. The only think that he could see was a portion of his beard which extended just below the brim of his hat. It was grey and seemed as if it were frail and brittle. It gave Sakaiza the impression that the man was older, yet for such an old man he stood with quite the sturdy posture and upright. Now Sakaiza began to think that this man could possible be a powerful shinobi who was concealing his identity for a certain reason in particular, but what could that reason be? As the two continued to stand there looking at each other, the man simply laughed and turned around in what seemed like slow motion and took several steps forward. After he took those steps, he seemed to disappear in that direction. Upon seeing the man's vanishing Houdini act, Sakaiza was shocked. His eyes widened as large as possible and his jaw dropped as well. He could not believe what he just saw; surely he was just losing it. He had to confirm it.

Dashing forward to the man's relative location, when Sakaiza would arrive he would look around in search of the man. His eyes first checked the area where the man walked towards, followed by a nearby alleyway and then a crowded area nearby. But there was no sign of the man. Just then, Sakaiza heard a sharp whistle coming from above him. He tilted his head up and his eyes fell upon the man's location, perched on the top of one of the nearby buildings. But how had he gotten up there so quickly and without effort? This had to have been some sort of intricately planned out practical joke, otherwise it seemed as if the man was intentionally getting Sakaiza's attention and trying to draw him out somewhere. Sakaiza's guard started to increase slightly, as he was unsure of the man's identity, what he wanted with Sakaiza and where he was leading him to. Sakaiza quickly activated his Byakugan and began to scan the man's chakra signature. It seemed as if he had not had the most developed chakra network as it looked quite normal and like a civilians in all honestly. It was a standard blue chakra network flowing throughout his body in a slow fashion, there was nothing out of the ordinary. There was no way this man was a threat, but why did he seem so disturbingly mysterious then? Sakaiza wanted to get to the bottom of this unsolved mystery, and the only way to do so was to folllow him while keeping a close eye on all of his movements and the general direction of where he was leading Sakaiza. Sakaiza quickly used his surface walking technique to run up the side of a nearby building and as he reached the top, he gripped the edge. Pulling his body up, he rose to his feet and turned his head in the direction of where the man had been standing. But as Sakaiza had rose to his feet, the man was again gone.

Closing his eyes and relying on his 360 degree vision of his Byakugan, Sakaiza began to search for the man's chakra network again. He searched the rooftops around him until he stumbled upon a chakra signature quite a distance away from him. He opened his eyes and directed his attention to the location and there was the man, roughly 50 meters north of Sakaiza's location. This time he had been waving and his head was tilted up enough to show his crooked smile. Sakaiza was truly creeped out at this point, but still his curiosity would get the best of him. Judging by the general direction the man had been moving in, Sakaiza inferred that he was trying to lead the young Hyuuga outside of the village. Perhaps he was trying to lead Sakaiza to the desert. Maybe he wanted a battle with Sakaiza outside of the village. If that were the case, then Sakaiza would know that this would not be just a spar. But instead, this would be a life threatening battle.

This cat and mouse ploy seemed to keep up for quite some more time until Sakaiza reached the village gates. He let the shinobi guarding the gates know that he was going out to the desert for training and they let him pass. It was outside of village regulations to let him do so but they knew that Sakaiza could hold his own and that he would return. Sakaiza was a regular to training outside of the village in the Sunagakure desert, so it became almost second nature to just let Sakaiza outside of the gate to train in the desert. Therefore the shinobi on guard thought nothing of it. Instead, they just opened up the gates and told Sakaiza not to be outside of the village for too long, otherwise the kazekage would get suspicious on the whereabouts of one of his genin. Sakaiza nodded and proceeded past the gates. He took several steps forward before he woulds top and begin to search for the man again. It seemed as if when Sakaiza finally did find the man's location he had been standing on a pathway unknown to Sakaiza. Nevertheless, Sakaiza pursued him. Sakaiza pursued the man all the way down that path until finally he came across the mouth of a cave. The cave was large and ominous, there was an eerie feeling evoked from the cave which gave Sakaiza slight goosebumps. He wasn't scared, just anxious to see what he was about to get himself into. It was too late for him to turn back now for the shinobi at the gates would be questioning what caused him to come back so soon. Additionally, Sakaiza did not want to turn back and basically run from a situation that he didn't understand. Sakaiza ran from no danger, instead he only ran towards it. But just to be safe, Sakaiza kept his guard high and his eyes open.

He took several steps towards the cave before hearing a voice call out to him. "Listen, Hyuuga. We've got several tasks for you to train you. If you succeed these tasks, not only will you get to live but you will grow stronger. There is no time to turn back now, for you have already sealed your fate by stepping inside the entrance. Please walk forward and you will come across your first task."

Sighing slightly out of pure realization that he would be in over his head for the remainder of the evening, Sakaiza shrugged his shoulders and walked through the entrance. He figured the person would not answer any of the questions he had, so instead he tried to just list out the questions in his head. What was he doing there, what tasks did he have to do, who were these people, how many were there, why in this case, and so many more. It was a weird situation for Sakaiza, but he did not have much of a choice in regards to entering the cave at all. As his foot crossed the entrance of the cave, it felt as if Sakaiza had entered a genjutsu of some nature. Recognizing this, he quickly brought his fingers together and performed his genjutsu release. However, nothing happened.

Just as Sakaiza noticed then, that same voice boomed out again to reach out to Sakaiza. “It’s futile. This genjutsu is far beyond one single shinobi’s. It is the working of several, designed to keep you in so you cannot escape until you are finished here. This genjutsu is not designed to alter reality, instead it is simply to keep one trapped. Please keep walking forward.”

The voice was raspy, likely old. Sakaiza could only assume that it was the voice of the old man who seemed to have been luring Sakaiza here. It was quite evident that he had been and supposedly the purpose of this was to have Sakaiza test out and hone his skills. However, this was not a training session as what were common in Sunagakure. Instead it held battles, battles that could get a shinobi killed in the process due to the physical demands from it. But with all of this in his mind, Sakaiza still moved through. He wanted to get to the bottom of this.

As he walked through the dark tunnel of the cave Sakaiza was stopped by a shinobi who knelt in front of him as if he were praying or making a pilgrimage to his God. Detecting Sakaiza’s presence, he rose to his feet from his knees. As the shinobi rose to his feet, Sakaiza looked at him eerily.

“Today….you will learn how to breathe.” Was all the man said.

With that, he quickly formed a hand seal. But there was something about this handseal, it was one that Sakaiza had never seen or even performed before. It consisted of his index and pinky fingers touching while his right hands middle and ring fingers rested on his left’s knuckles and his left’s middle and ring fingers went down and perpendicular with those fingers resting on their knuckles. As for his thumbs, they were connected together and pointing towards his own body. Sakaiza, slightly alarmed, raised an eyebrow and took to his guard. He was unsure if this would begin an attack from the shinobi, so Sakaiza quickly assumed his gentle fist stance and prepared his body for an incoming attack. But the shinobi opposing him did not attack. Instead, it seemed as if he had begun to breathe. Sakaiza then began to wonder exactly what the person had meant when he said that Sakaiza would learn how to breathe today. He had been breathing for years, it was something he was used to, if not one of the things he was best at. So how would someone teach another how to breathe? It was a subconscious thing that people did without much thought behind it. But it must have been something completely different, and it had to have been related to that strange hand seal that he had just performed. Sakaiza put two and two together because right after he said that to him, he formed and hand seal and noticeably took in a large inhale. But what would happen as a result.

“You and I are going to fight. But the only way you will walk away from this fight is if I’m dead. And the only way you’ll be able to kill me…is if you breathe like I do.”

Sakaiza’s pupils enlarged, now concerned about the situation that he was put in. But instantaneously with when the shinobi finished his speech, he was in front of Sakaiza. How did he move so fast? Sakaiza, in place and immobile with shock, stood there. The shinobi capitalized, launching his knee up quickly and sending it crashing into the midsection of Sakaiza. Sakaiza, feeling the knee crash into his abdominal area winced as the air left his lungs. His eyes teared up slightly, it was the hardest hit he had received in a one on one battle before, but it was humbling. Realizing the power behind this man, Sakaiza knew he would have to give this battle his all if he were going to wind. He knew he would have to breathe the way the man wanted him too if we wanted to survive. As Sakaiza dropped to the floor, he caught his fall with his right hand while the other gripped his stomach. He hung his head low and lifted it up, eying the man from his sandals all the way up to his face. When Sakaiza’s eyes met the man’s face, he was shocked by what he had seen. The shinobi’s eyes did not seem normal, instead they seemed to have been engulfed in a white sea which held both of his entire eyes hostage. Not only were his entire eyes white, but it seemed as if they were radiating an aura that housed a yellow tint. This was the first time Sakaiza had felt anything along the lines of fear. It stemmed more from his lack of understanding regarding what was actually happening. But it also was a direct result of knowing that this encounter would mean life or death for him. Taking a quick second to piece together what was unfolding before his eyes, Sakaiza had to infer what the man was doing. It had to have been some sort of jutsu that employed the use of breathing. But from that breathing, he was able to amplify his body movement to move very quickly and force his knee into Sakaiza with a driving force that felt too powerful to be natural.

Sakaiza had got it. He realized what it was he had to do. He had to breathe and breathe easy. Still crouched over and on the ground, Sakaiza employed a leg sweep in an attempt to buy him some time. As his leg revolved around his position and attempted to cut off the man in front of him, Sakaiza quickly brought his hands up and mirrored the hand seal which he had just recently seen the other shinobi conduct. In the process, Sakaiza did the next step simultaneously: he took a deep breathe. Doing so, he felt his chakra begin to heighten intensively, almost as if it were exploding from his body. He could feel his strength heighten, like his muscles were getting stronger. But he could not focus too heavily on this right now, for he would need to exploit the opportunity at hand. As Sakaiza had just employed the leg sweep, the man had leaped over it and seemed to be responding and countering it with his own flying wheel kick aimed at the shoulder of the Hyuuga. Sakaiza shifted his body slightly so that he was in line with where the kick was aimed and would have to react. It seemed so much easier now, for he could see everything that was occurring and thus could react better. In one quick motion, he caught the kick of the man by swiftly bringing his knee high and up and his elbow low and down. Due to his increased speed and increased strength, Sakaiza crushed the leg of the man and an echoing crack was heard throughout the cave. The man did not react to his now broken bone however, instead he used the pivot Sakaiza created with his catching of his leg to bring the other leg up for a heel kick to Sakaiza’s head. The kick delivered and Sakaiza was knocked down and back. The other shinobi too fell to the ground in pain though. It was a wonder how he was able to still move and attack despite the attack Sakaiza just had, but it would only mean that he was even more of a threat than Sakaiza was. Almost in unison, the two rolled away from each other and rose to their feet. Sakaiza, clutching the side of his head while feeling the pain from that kick and the man leaning to his non injured foot to avoid placing pressure on it.

He began laughing, and once again formed a hand seal that Sakaiza had never seen before. Only this time, it was different than the one he had done previously. This time, his index and pinky were resting on the opposite hand’s knuckles while the middle and ring fingers hung perpendicular and below the hand. The other hand had the middle and ringer fingers resting on the opposite’s knuckles while the spacing between the index and pink were broken by the other hand’s index and pink. His thumbs again connected but were positioned beneath his hands with the hanging fingers resting on the bridge they created. Again, he breathed in and the physical change to his appearance was far more noticeable than the last one. His muscles were now bulging from their frame and even seemed to be larger and longer. His eyes remained the same as before though, although the aura from them seemed to have a larger area of influence. Thus he flew towards Sakaiza.

Sakaiza recognized that this was all some sort of cryptic training session where the shinobi had wanted to teach the Hyuuga something but he did so in such a dangerous manner. Therefore, Sakaiza needed to react the same way he did last time. While the man was forming the hand seals, Sakaiza’s Byakugan allowed him to be able to see the exact positioning of his hands when he had formed the seal and how he had done so. Sakaiza had always been a swift learner, so recreating this hand seal he had just seen and employing it in battle right after doing so would not be something outside his area of expertise. Thus, he formed the exact same hand seal, aligning his fingers in the correct, respective positions while having his thumbs reside underneath them in the process. Right after doing so, Sakaiza took a deep breath and quickly. He had little to no time to respond the man who was hurling his body towards Sakaiza, as he was now much closer than what he had been when Sakaiza initially began to form the hand seals. As Sakaiza executed his hand seals and breathed in, his muscles began to bulge. From the opposite shinobi’s perspective, he would now see Sakaiza’s eyes still exerting the byakugan but were also emitting the same yellowish aura that his own had been giving off. At the same time, Sakaiza’s arms and legs grew longer and stronger evidently represented by their increasing mass. The shinobi knew he was finished. He had the idea that he would be able to take on Sakaiza, but his mentor had not warned him for the true challenge that Sakaiza was. As a result from the other shinobi’s quick and sudden split second of fear, he hesitated. Noting this hesitation and completely uncontrolling of his own chakra, Sakaiza capitalized, and hard. He quickly sent a punch for the incoming shinobi’s face which would make contact. Right after, he sent his other palm hurling towards the opponent’s torso which served as his vacuum palm. It blew a hole through the man’s chest in a quick second. But the wild Sakaiza was not yet finished, as he began to execute the beginning of his sixty four palms technique. Only about 40 of the strikes actually were able to land on the man, for the last few would cause him to fall and die right then and there.

Sakaiza, pumping with adrenaline, did not feel the feelings he had felt when he had killed his first person. Instead, he was shaking with the rushing adrenaline and thrill from the battle that he just go. It was different, almost as if Sakaiza had lost a sense of his compassion for a fellow human being. It was exactly what the orchestrator of this one rendezvous had desired. Hearing a faint laughter, the genjutsu around Sakaiza began to fade, as well as the advanced strength and speed that Sakaiza had just come across.

“Good. Now leave,” the voice said in an abrupt tone, completely disregarding the fact that he had just lost one of his henchman.

Sakaiza, puzzled by the situation and confused to the largest degree was still shaking slightly. But he did as the voice ordered without much hesitation. He headed towards the exit of the cave and from there he made his way back to the village gates. He did not know if he should feel some type of way for the situation that just occurred, but to be truthful he did not feel much except relief. Perhaps this was what the advanced shinobi of the village felt when they killed. For they did not see it as the taking of a life, but instead they would focus on the saving of their own. And that was exactly what Sakaiza was considering as he made the trek back to the village and to his home.

[Exit]

WC: 3947

Claiming Seven Heavens Breathing Method
C - Rank -> 1500/1500 Reduced WC from max stats
B - Rank -> 2250/2250 Reduced WC from max stats

Also Claiming 39 AP

Sat May 28, 2016 10:38 am

Approved <3

Breathe Easy

Breathe Easy

Re: Breathe Easy