Training with The Cursed One! ( Open, NK )

Hiro woke up feeling terrible. Normally, he would wake up and feel ready to go, but today he could barely pull himself out of bed to make breakfast, cereal and milk in a measuring cup.  Afterwords, he went to the training ground, slowly.  After he arrived, he started with jumping jacks, waking himself up, before beginning to train his clone Jutsu, doing one clone, not very well, and slowly improving it.  It took him almost an hour to make a single acceptable clone. By this time, he was finally awake, and could get training for real. He started trying to get two clones, which started out badly, with them hunched over, looking drunk, and so he continued training. He was improving steadily enough, although it would go much faster with a teacher.

WC 148

Salzem sat in the training grounds, questioning his life. Every single time anything ever seemed to happen, he was always drawn to this place. He didn't even have to train. He'd simply sit here in these training grounds, find a dummy or wall to lean up against and watch the fireworks. One might say that a higher power was causing all these events to happen, something manipulating the flow of events so that he was constantly drawn to this particular place as he has unfinished business here but Salzem was not that person. He was simply frustrated that he was starting to know where every little dummy, every dust cloud, every little nugget of sand under his feet was, had he been here so long. He sighed and raised his arm up in front of him. At the tempo of his heart, the lycan ninja began transforming then un-transforming his arm with each beat of his heart. Werewolf, human. Werewolf, human. On.... off.... on.... of.... watching how his flesh and bones broke and contorted. It didn't even hurt anymore. Maybe he just stopped caring about his own physical state after his teacher died. What was the point of training if it all ended with everyone you were training for were to die at your feet as you helplessly learn about it? What was the point of doing anything when one of your comrades were out getting beheaded or delimbed somewhere in the world while you were helpless to do anything? Salzem decided not to train at the training grounds today. It wasn't his day to go punch some useless hunks of wood. It wouldn't do him any good to smash anything. He'd just be angry and anger was far harder to handle than despair. Salzem's eyes bounced boredly from one person to the next as they punched the wooden dummies, meditated, or... whatever THAT one was doing... Eventually, his eyes fell on some shaggy, black haired kid with a facial expression more boring than the bland wasteland surrounding him. He walked in with a sort of pride, confidence that frustrated Salzem. What, did he think he was tough? A powerhouse? That he deserved to walk that way? Salzem rolled his eyes and shook his head, obviously disapproving with the younger kid's demeanor.

As he continued making the clones, Jack was slowly falling back into the sleepy state he was In when he had arrived. He needed to wake all the way up, to do something exciting or fun!  Fighting would be a bad idea, as most of the people here could definitely beat him in a fight, and he still had a full day of training, and couldn't afford an injury.  He needed to get stronger and train, but he also needed to be awake so he could do that.  The first fun thing he thought of was to fight, but like he had said, that an option.  He saw other people there, but most of them were just training like him.  One of them was sitting separate from the others, shifting his arm between hairy and clawed, and human, back and forth. He decided to investigate, walking in his direction, stopping to think for a second, and going the rest of the way to the man. "How did you do that?" Hiro asked, if he would be able to learn how to do it himself, and if this serious looking man would be willing to teach him.


WC 204

Salzem went back to changing his arm back and forth, back and forth, trying to get comfortable with the sensation it brought him. It felt... strange... the way his skin shifted, stretched to fit the shape of his morphing skeleton. Apparently, his little trick caught the attention of the kid who walked on over to him practically wide eyed and asking how he did that. The sanguine eyed ninja said nothing and only glared at the boy, his look apparently asking "Why did you come bother me?" His arm reformed back into it's human shape, hiding his transformation from the kid's prying eyes. He didn't look the kind of child who would simply want to learn his technique because it looked cool. He didn't like how the kid was far away and didn't like him now that he was close. Salzem found him... disturbing.

"It's a talent." Salzem explained, giving the child a hard look. "It cannot be taught. Not to you or anyone else." He honestly doubted that would be enough to convince the child to go away. No one seemed capable of acknowledging the fact Salzem wanted to be left alone for a while. He supposed it couldn't be helped. Maybe he was just giving off the wrong vibes and things worked a bit differently than they did in Konoha.

"Listen, kid. What do you want?"

Hiro didn't consider that a satisfactory answer, but left the topic of the arm alone, and went on to answer the next question. " Training, preferably about something interesting, but any Jutsu will do.". As he spoke, he pulsed chakra through different parts of his body, training while he spoke.  Without a teacher, it was much more difficult to learn new things, and this man didn't seem to want to train him, but Hiro would still try to convince him to.

WC 80

"Really...?" Salzem asked, sarcasm heavy in his voice. "You want to train with me... and you have nothing in mind? Just... 'something interesting...'" Salzem peered down at the boy who looked back up at him with that same spunky confidence he had when he walked in. That self-entitled look on his face frustrated Salzem to no end. He honestly expected some random stranger to accept to teach him something when said stranger either A, doesn't know his maximum potential, or B, is demanded to teach something. Half of Salzem wanted to outright refuse, knowing there was very little he could do if he said no. That half of Salzem wanted to brush the kid off and let him go train with other children of his power range and age, people he could actually help grow instead of just himself. The other half of Salzem, however, found a sort of humor in letting him be trained. Instead of glaring at the younger boy and shutting him down, a smile spread across Salzem's face, one that wasn't of joy.

"Alright, kid." Salzem said finally, still not bothering to get up from where he sat. "You'll learn something. But I got to know where you stand physically and mentally. I want you to attack me with every little bit of strength you got. If you don't I might get it in you're head that you're stronger than you are and you could die." He would motion for the boy to come at him with his hand, remaining just as calm and completely relaxed as he was when he entered. "Go ahead. Show me what you got."

Hiro would listen up to the last word, at which point he would swing his right arm at Salzam's right side, just below the rib cage, aimed at the softest part of the torso with a slight upward angle, after which he would bring his left knee up into his stomach, aiming closer to the kidney at another upward angle, continuing with a left handed jab at his throat, Straight forward, all of these attacks he would do as fast and hard as he could, (speed of 6, strength of 6), before bringing his right leg all the way up, directly into Salzam's chin, Bringing himself slightly off the ground, with as much force as he could muster, (again, speed and strength of 6), extending his leg to push himself off of his chest, launching himself back roughly 5 feet.  This was definitely more interesting than training by himself, or with a dummy, although the man wouldn't attack back, or if he did, it wouldn't be full force, because where's the fun in ending it instantly? He was somewhat worried that he would retaliate in some way, so made sure to keep in a slightly defensive position, readying himself to dodge or block.

WC 203

Salzem took each of the blows with hardly any reaction, each hit on slightly tilting his frame appropriate to placement. Never once did he flinch, shy away from or attempt to defend himself from the kid's offense by any means. He wasn't strong enough to hurt him this way anyway. The last attack Salzem barely felt, the knee to his stomach. The kid had launched himself backwards 5 feet, pushing off the sanguine-eyed ninja's body as he sat casually in place. Once that little flurry of blows ended, Salzem would sigh, slightly disappointed and would proceed to stand to his full height, hands in his jacket pockets.

"Yeah, yeah. Okay, I get the picture." Salzem said lazily. "Judging by you're combat ability and all that, there's not much flashy stuff I can teach you right now. If I even tried.... well... lets just say that it wouldn't end well for you." Salzem would pause a moment. "That being said, what I can do is teach you something far simpler and just as 'interesting' if you appreciate subtlety." Salzem would extend an open palm for the kid to expect. "No handsigns. Now... This technique is known as a Mark Seal. Very basic, but it has it's uses." He reached off to the side and grabbed a heavy wooden dummy, dragging it over to them for the kid to mess around with. "See that dummy? I want to imprint your chakra signature on it. Go ahead. Try." Salzem didn't give any instructions on purpose. He wanted to see how much talent the boy actually had before he Salzem decided he needed help.

Salzem would have said something after his first attempt, but the kid just kept on going, determined to do the entire thing himself. No, really, Salzem just kept to himself and watched as the kid tried blasting his chakra into the dummy over and over AND OVER making the tiniest amount of progress each time. Occasionally, the lycan ninja would offer bits of advice such as "less/more chakra" or "try focusing it in the palm of your hand." He liked to think these little bits helped him somewhat because after a time and a LARGE amount of chakra later, the kid actually managed to place the tiny black dot on the dummy. Salzem raised an eyebrow, genuinely surprised the boy managed to do this almost entirely on his own so fast. Heck, Salzem took longer learning this, but then, he was a taijutsu specialist and NOT a chakra manipulator.

"Well..." Salzem said, turning his gaze on the boy in mild surprise. "If I knew you had this much talent, I would have just kept quiet and let you do the entire thing yourself..." His tone remained neutral, but what he said was somewhat of a compliment. One doesn't simply learn a technique with very little instruction. Kid had some promise in chakra. Whether or not he was what Salzem thought, the boy looked like he had slammed his head into a wall for the past couple minutes; tired and exhausted. Despite his talent at using chakra, the kid's stamina left much to be desired. Oh well. What did he expect. He looked green enough to be an Academy student so this judgement seemed justified.

"You look worn out, kid." Salzem observed. "Maybe you should head home and rest." With that, Salzem would lower himself back into his spot, sitting under the shade of a wall, attempting to catch some sleep.

(Exit)