Rome's Night Training

Rome did not expect to be too surprised at whatever Kuro had in store, but his expectations were wrong. He nodded even as the process occurred. "I somehow doubt anyone would believe me even if I tried. That's a quite a thing to do, really." Rome had watched carefully, still examining the clone. It should make for a better target, but he was still just slightly befuddled. He started toward the dummy. "You are full of surprises, Kuro. To the brim. And don't worry about me telling anyone." Rome tacked on the last part as a second thought, realizing he hadn't actually said it yet.

As Rome approached the clone, keeping himself at the proper distance, he wondered if it would actually catch fire or just weather it. Hard to discern, given that this was the first time he'd seen something like it. Rome reached back in his memory to exactly what he'd done last time, remembering that he might keep the chakra more well spread this time. He ran through a quick mental checklist. First, the overall grasp of the jutsu, chakra formed into ball of fire, push ball of fire at target. Second, no premature detonation when he was transforming the chakra. That was a rather unpleasant occurrence. Third, keep the chakra well spread through the air so it didn't literally blow up in his face, worth noting twice. Fourth, the two handseals and he went straight to trying, this time succeeding at performing the jutsu. Because it held truer to the name, Rome wanted the time he expected to get it right to be as a ball and that's just what it was. The burning sphere formed quickly, and he sent it forward at the dummy clone with all the velocity it could've been hurled at (power and speed at 20). Regardless of what happened to the clone, Rome smiled and started back to Kuro. On his short walk back, he got dizzy and stumbled. The jutsu was also far more taxing than Fire Stream, and it caught him off guard. "Thanks for that, it's good to have a target. And I called it, got it down quickly. But I can definitely feel the difference too, and I think I'll have to work on my stamina so I can perform better in real combat. But either way, I learned a jutsu. Anything you want to work on? I could try to help somehow." Rome wanted to repay the favor, as well as take a break from breathing fire. His throat hurt from all the practice.

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Kuro couldn't help grinning when Rome said he was full of surprises, his mind instantly thinking of all the other tricks he was able to pull out of his sleeve in a fight. That was Kuro's greatest strength after all, the surprises he could throw his opponent off guard with. For now though, he just watched as Rome attempted his jutsu once more. The clone would remain motionless as it awaited the flames. Once it had been struck by the large ball of fire, the wood clone would be knocked backwards onto the ground from the force of the flame. The clone wood then shakily rise to it's feet, much of it's front burnt to a crisp while flames continued to rage on it's arms and legs. The flames soon consumed the clone and it fell to the ground, slowly turning to ash while Kuro felt the chakra he'd poured into it flow back to him. This was just what Kuro wanted, the flames were a great way to make sure all evidence of his wood jutsu had been destroyed.

"Nice job! That looked like you had everything done just right!"
"Very impressive. That might have even been strong enough to leave a mark on me. Of course, you'd be dead immediately after, but it still looked nice."
Kuro and Sylveon gave their praise as he made his way back to him, Kuro chuckling a bit when Rome mentioned stamina. "Yeah, Stamina used to be one of my biggest weaknesses. I learned some high level techniques, but they used so much energy that I'd only be able to use them two or three times before I was exhausted. That's actually how I lost one of my first fights. Now, as for you helping me with a jutsu... well, I can think of two I want to work on, but you could only help with one of them so let's give that a try."

Kuro put his hands together and performed the seals, Hare, Ox, Monkey, then held out his hand as he poured chakra into the his fingertips, blue flames slowly forming on each finger of his right hand. Kuro focused as he continued to hold the chakra in his fingertips, making sure to not let up. "Now, all you need to do is hold still. This might sting a little but it's a medical ninjutsu so you shouldn't worry. I mean, you can worry if that makes you feel better but you're going to be fine either way."
Kuro would then step forward and swing his hand at Rome's just as fast as he could, his hand vanishing from Rome's sight momentarily as he hit him with his flaming fingers. Kuro's fingers would sink about 1/4 of an inch into Rome's chest and Rome would feel a stab of pain as a result. Kuro's chakra would then begin pouring into him, Kuro letting out his breath as his chakra flooded Rome's nervous system, blocking out Rome's sense of pain. Starting at where the fingers were embedded in his body, the pain numbing sensation would soon envelop Rome's entire nervous system, even causing the pain in his throat to cease.

Kuro would then slowly pull his hand away, Vixie hurrying over and licking the blood from his fingertips while the small holes in Rome's chest began lightly bleeding. "Phew. How's that feel? I uh... That's a little deeper of a mark than I thought it would be. I should close those holes up. Sorry about that." Kuro then pressed his hands together, chakra flames enveloping them entirely instead of just his fingertips. Placing his palms over Rome's chest, using some simple first aid jutsu to patch up the slight damage he'd done. The small holes in Rome's chest rapidly closed up as Kuro's chakra greatly enhanced his body's natural healing capabilities. "Therrrrre we gooooo, allllll better! So, how did that feel after that? If I did it right, you shouldn't be feeling any pain right now."

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Their praise widened Rome's grin, even the one including the idea of his swift demise. He watched Kuro's fingers carefully as he mentioned the jutsu, though there was no name given. Rome remarked the seals, still not recognizing the jutsu, but did the blue flames made him smile in a crooked, "this will probably hurt" way. "I suppose worrying is pointless, I'll just be curious instead." The next series of sensations provoked a gasp, at first of pain, turning to a strange mix of curiosity, relief, and then as a question as to what happened.

"It doesn't hurt, but that was certainly unexpected. And my throat doesn't hurt. The holes didn't hurt. My skin stitching itself together because of chakra feels really odd. But what was that whole thing? Your jutsu has piqued my curiosity, what with it having been in me." The curiosity showed on his face, more openly than it normally would have. Medical Ninjutsu never really held interest, up until that. Rome was always more interested in what hurt rather than healed a person. Now, he was interested in the effects such a thing could have. Harmful, helpful, utility. The idea captivated him because of its potential as an asset. "Would you teach me some medical stuff? I don't know what, but I'd appreciate it greatly if you could teach me." Medical jutsu was no outlandish thing to learn, but it held true to his statement about surprises that it was another thing Kuro could do. The thought of Kuro's versatility made Rome think of learning other elements, and becoming a Chuunin. His future and the progression of his abilities didn't make him anxious as one would expect, but appreciative of potential among things. He looked down at Vixie. "Bloodthirsty adorable fox. Huh."

Vixie just looked up at Rome innocently once she had cleaned Kuro's fingers of blood, her tail wagging slightly as she acted like she hadn't done anything at all. "Yeah she's a little monster. Her fur is super soft though so she's forgiven." Kuro gave the fox a quick pat on the head before looking back to Rome and considering his request to learn medical jutsu.

"Um yeah. I could do that! I don't really know very many jutsus yet. Actually that was only my second medical jutsu. All I know other than that is first aid. I do have the training to learn the advanced techniques though. Whichever you want to work on first, the best way to start learning medical jutsu is to do a bit of study on the human body. Man, wish I carried around a chart or something. Never thought I'd be trying to teach medical stuff, it's kinda hard to just... explain. Plus the way I learned it had to do with my ability to turn to water. Hm. I think the best I could teach you without medical diagrams would be the simple base medical jutsu."
Kuro would give Vixie a pat on her nose, giving her a silent command. Vixie then immediately bit Kuro's hand, her teeth leaving several bleeding teeth marks in his hand. Kuro would then extend his now injured hand to Rome, using his control of his body's water to keep the blood from flowing out of the wound.

"All right, for this lesson I'm controlling the water in my blood so it won't just, go all over the place. This way you can get a good look at the injury. Now, the body is made up of soft cells and hard cells. Since you're just starting, we're going to focus on minor flesh wounds which are made of the soft cells. Now, perform the handseals Boar, Rat and Snake as you focus your chakra into your hands. Once you've got it going, put your hands on the wound. Once you do, you can begin pouring your chakra into the cells, focusing on making them grow and come back together, naturally sealing the wound up at a faster rate. It's not too hard with small wounds since they already try to heal up pretty quick on their own. I'm gonna let the blood start flowing now, so do your best."
Kuro would then take a deep breath and let it go, his blood flow returning to it's normal state. The small bite marks rapidly turning dark red as the blood escaped his body.

Rome just kind of shrugged at first, not wanting to weigh fur softness against viciousness. He listened intently to Kuro's explanation of what jutsu he knew was understandable, but Rome was curious as to how it was to be explained. 'Hard' was not what he was expecting, but now he just went back to remembering what he had seen moments ago. More fascinating than the jutsu was Kuro's control of his blood to keep himself in better health, presumably usable on greater wounds. Though Rome quickly pulled his thoughts back on the jutsu he had asked to learn. Chakra could be used to enhance healing, that he knew. The idea of Medical Ninjutsu was no oddball idea, the Academy covered such a simple topic. As Kuro began to bleed, Rome weaved the Boar, Rat, and Snake seals as he'd been instructed. Chakra slowly enveloped his hands, starting at his palms and creeping along his skin. He carefully concentrated his chakra into Kuro's cells, those with the potential to liquefy, and advanced their normal regeneration to the best of his knowledge. They were obviously moving toward healing the bite, but at a very slow rate. Rome's chakra served as an energy source or catalyst to speed them, but not at first. This was the first time in a bit he'd had to use his chakra in any form other than fire, which wasn't very useful for this jutsu. Medical jutsu could come in handy, he reminded himself, but only if he got the hang of the basics. For a few seconds, nothing happened aside from Rome exhausting what chakra he put into his hands. Slowly but surely, just as the blood had started to well and drip off his hand, Kuro's skin started stitching itself back together. Rome's eyebrows furrowed slightly, this whole medical thing requiring more control than combustion. As the small bite started to heal on the right, the healing accelerated. Each tooth mark took less time than the last. A few seconds and it was all healed. "That seems neat to know, I'll definitely utilize that. Thank you, Kuro."

WC 351, claiming the jutsu bc training.

As Rome turned his attention away from the jutsu and the no longer existent bite, he found himself surprised. Not by anything new, but by the beings he found around himself. Late at night at the training grounds, he had run into this mixed bunch. It started with the cute bloodthirsty Vixie, just prancing on up to him. Sylveona with her singing had put him in a mood to interact, even given her intimidating appearance. Kuro was pleasant to be around, his friendly demeanor and help training Rome's fire ball making him entertaining to be around. "How did you get such an odd crew here? And what was that first jutsu? And sorry for the barrage of questions." Kuro had, not for the first time, made Rome very curious. Surprisingly enough, Kuro hadn't became agitated by all of the younger ninja's questioning as of yet.

Kuro smiled as he watched Rome use the basic medical jutsu to fix up his injured hand, giving his fingers a few test wiggles to make sure it was properly fixed before nodding his approval. "All right, that wasn't bad at all. Just remember, this is for small flesh wounds. You won't be patching up anybody's organs with this. Still gonna need professionals at the hospital for stuff like that."

Hearing his next volley of questions, Kuro chuckled and sat down in the sand, resting against Sylveona while Vixie climbed into his lap. "How I met these two... now that's a long story. Let's see, it all started with a training exercise. There were some bad people hanging around Yuki, killing genin so that the village couldn't grow in strength. In an effort to keep that from happening to me and a few others, we went on a trip into the neighboring Waterfall country to go train in Taki. Then... something started happening so the training was delayed. We were free to explore the village and the surrounding jungle and that's where I saw Vixie. Using some jerky I lured her in close and then I snatched her up! Then I just held onto her and let her bite the crap out of me until she calmed down. Once she stopped biting I gave her more food and pet her. After awhile she figured out that I was a friend and nothing to be scared of. Plus I had food. So she started following me around, just like I planned. Over time, we got closer and learned to work together. Right Vix?"
The fox responded by giving him a lick on the cheek, then turned around and started licking his bloody hand clean.

"Let's see, after that, Taki was attacked by... Someone. I took Vixie and left before the village was destroyed and started making my way back to Yuki... except I got lost in the jungle. Vixie couldn't show me the way out because she didn't understand where I was trying to go, so I just kept running around. Eventually, I found a smaller hydra being attacked by some bandits and decided to rescue him since he was calling for help."
Sylveona nudged Kuro as he spoke and cleared her throat a bit, wanting to speak as well.

"The young hydra Kuro had saved agreed to bring him to our hidden cove as thanks. I remember seeing the two of them walking to the king's chambers. Once there, the king tried to kill Kuro so he couldn't tell other humans where we live. As Kuro has pointed out, physical attacks don't hurt him unless he wants to stay solid. Since the king could not smash him, and Kuro promised to keep our secret, Kuro was allowed to sign a contract with our race. The contract allows him to summon us in times of need, as long as he does not betray our trust. This is actually still only my second time having been summoned by him. He proved his worth to me the first time when he was able to resist my hypnosis."
Kuro nodded and smiled, feeling that her side of the story explained things just fine. "And that's pretty much it. Now, you were asking about the first jutsu I used... which one were you referring to? I can't remember what I used first. We aren't in a fight so I wasn't paying that much attention to the order of my jutsu."

Rome listened intently to his story, nodding along occasionally. He was just absorbing the information, his curiosity nigh sated. He understood Kuro's desire to not elaborate certain bits made since, presumably, it was when his village was destroyed. The story about Vixie was a very odd point, because it was so simple and cool. The idea of simply making friends was the most obvious but seemingly least viable one. Vixie was just a plainfox, but had grown more intelligent and presumably sociable because of their companionship. The story about the hydra was even more surprising. The idea of a very small hydra amused him, but the idea that once more out of kindness and friendliness, helping the hydra, got him to run into an entire race of allies. Besides, it seemed like Kuro and Sylveona had known each other longer than just twice based on the relationship they'd already formed. Although it did also seem like Sylveona to make him earn respect based on the personality he'd recognized in her. "Oh, I meant the one you'd used on me, the first of the medical ones. What with the chakra in me and such." It could help his knowledge of medical things, which he was already deriving ideas from. For example, having used it now, he decided that it'd be quite the fire if he transformed his chakra to fire as he was using the basic medical jutsu. Very hard to put out, seeing as it'd be burning through your cells. Rome's eyes blinked as he returned his attention to Kuro, away from his fascinating and morbid thoughts.

"Oh that one! Right, that was an anesthetic jutsu. I studied up on it a bit before I started travelling around but I never really practiced it before. I had more important things to work on at the time. It's not super hard, but it's a little more complicated than the healing. You need to know a bit about the nervous system. The only reason I know very much about the nervous system is because I keep breaking my body down and putting it back together at the smallest of levels. If you could slow down my reformation process and see exactly what I can feel when I do it, you can learn a lot about all the pieces that make up a body."

Getting up to his feet again, Kuro would show Rome the handseals he had used, followed by showing off the way he held his hand so that his fingers were spread out but level, with a chakra flame glowing on each one. "The reason you have to use a stabbing motion with your fingers, is because you're trying to directly effect the nervous system, using your chakra to flow throughout the body and cancel out the signals the nerves send to the brain. If the brain can't get the message, you can't feel the pain. Of course, this doesn't actually HEAL anything, but it's a good way to help someone relax when they are in pain. Or you could use it on an enemy so they don't notice that they're being hurt. Or you can try using it on yourself so you don't flinch from pain and can push on, but that'd be really dangerous. It also doesn't last very long, which is why you use five fingers to make sure it spreads as fast as possible. That covers everything I know about it, but I'll probably be trying it out more now that I know it works."

The idea of taking out someone's ability to feel pain seemed as though it had quite the bit of potential. Any jutsu that would eliminate a key sense had quite the use, usually to gain combat advantage or assist in healing, was a useful one. Rome fully intended on learning it, once more carefully recalling the limited exposure he'd had in detail. What Kuro had demonstrated was enough for Rome to pick it up with relative quickness. The chakra had, in its previous demonstration, flowed into his nerves to neutralize them. If he wasn't decent at it before, Rome was soon to improve at his chakra control. He quickly went over it all again. "So, step by step. Chakra in fingers, stab target with fingers, flow chakra into the target's nerves, neutralizing their ability to communicate pain to the brain." Very snake-like process, chakra venom cutting the brain off.

Immediately after ending his explanation, Rome tried to perform the jutsu. Hare, Ox, and Monkey handseals. He channeled his chakra into his slowly spreading fingers, leaking out into carefully controlled flames. He took a moment, staring at the small blue fires that had appeared, keeping them controlled carefully. After his second to make sure they were fine, he stabbed at his own stomach. The idea of performing it on himself was the simplest process to see if it'd work, though it wasn't a habit to cause any pain to himself. Just above the previous location he'd been hit was where his fingers pierced and Rome immediately spread his chakra. Nerves were surprisingly good conductors, but the chakra wasn't very finely controlled. His chakra quickly fired through his nerves, but didn't restrict his pain. Instead, it stimulated the nerves to create a swift burst of pain that shot out from the place he'd hit. Rome winced and jerked his hand away, the other meeting it to perform the Boar, Rat, and Snake seals to heal the eound. That jutsu was easier to get the hang of, just sealing up soft cell wounds by helping make more. The wound disappeared quickly, and he returned his hands to his sides, looking from the spot to Kuro. Rome shrugged. "That did not feel pleasant in the least, and I think it'll take a bit more work not to just hurt myself. But hey, I got the first one down." Normally it didn't take more than one try but it wasn't easy for him to digress from the standard Ninjutsu he normally practiced.

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Kuro smiled and nodded as Rome attempted to copy the technique, happy to see he seemed to be doing all right. "Nice job. You should be careful though, you said you needed to work on stamina right? If you keep using up your chakra at this rate you're probably gonna pass out. You can't feel pain and that might affect how much you can feel exhaustion. I don't know where to take you if you pass out in the sand here. I'd take a break or call it a night if I were you. I've still got some energy to let out before I'm ready to sleep. Guess I'll give that other jutsu a try. First thing's first though, I need a nice little water source. Other than my body anyways. Using new jutsu with my own body's water can be messy, so it's best I use something outside my body. Less painful if I screw up."

Moving his hands faster than Rome's eyes could follow, Kuro performed the hand seals needed to prepare the Snake Mouth jutsu. Letting his chakra rapidly build up inside of his core as he took a deep breath. His chest began expanding a bit as if he were being inflated from within until he looked to the air and opened his mouth, a torrent of water gushing forth like a geyser into the air. The tip of the geyser shifted to take on the face of a snake, twisting in the air and turning back to the ground. The jutsu slammed into the sands, creating a small crater from it's impact and rapidly filling it until it had made a small pool of water. The jutsu would then taper off until Kuro closed his mouth and let go of his inhaled breath. "Ahhh, there we go. That outta do the trick. Now, let's give this new jutsu a try!"

Kuro took a deep breath once more as he began focusing his chakra again, this time performing a completely different set of hand seals than before, attempting to use the Water Beast jutsu. Holding the last seal, Kuro began pouring his mental focus into manipulating the pool of water. A large bulge slowly began to rise out of the water, growing and changing shape until it had taken on the form of a wolf like creature's head, two red eyes beginning to glow in the water. It's jaws slowly opened up as front legs began to form, slowly rising out of the water like a slime until the chakra allowed it to take on a more definitive form. The front legs were placed down on the sand as if it was standing before it's form began to melt and waiver, slowly breaking down as if it were a more solid creature that was being melted down until it completely collapsed. Kuro swayed slightly and slowly took a knee as he let the jutsu go. "Ah crap... This thing uses even more chakra than I thought. It's a lot more complicated than Snake mouth. I need to make the water... actually kind of sharp. Heh. Sharp water is not easy, trust me on that bit. I'll figure it out after awhile... I need to. It's going to be really powerful if I can do it right."
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