Fuinjutsu Tutoring [Solo]

The first day with her ninja tutor had been spent on the basics. Hand seals were reviewed for several basic techniques and drilled until she could produce them on command without hesitation. Both the clone and transformation techniques received thorough treatment in that first lesson. The second day when they met would be used to expand on auxiliary techniques, as she soon found out from Hyuuga Maka.

“Today we will be covering the basics of Fuinjutsu, otherwise known as the art of sealing. Our lesson will consist of the basis of sealing and breaking seals as well as the locking technique. Should our lesson go quickly enough we may have time to go over a seal that is unique to our clan. Do you have any questions?”, Maka asked looking down upon her charge.

“No, I do not, Maka-sensei.”, Tsubaki responded from her position kneeled on the floor. Her regular calligraphy equipment spread out before her. Scrolls, stylus, ink, and fine sand sat at the ready among a few other knick knacks. She understood that the creation of seals often had nothing to do with actually writing or drawing the seal in question, but was told it could help in the clarity of holding the imago, or mental picture, of the jutsu in her mind. 

“Good, than we will begin with the most basic seal, used for storage purposes.”, the chuunin began the lesson by kneeling down across from her student. Reaching up to her flak vest she pulled loose a clasp holding a compartment shut, catching the scroll the slid loose from the bottom of the compartment. Maka took it and placed it on the floor between them, unfurling it with a slick sliding motion that revealed the text inside. Kanji littered the tan surface of the interior of the scroll. Even upside down, Tsubaki could make them out. Kunai, Shuriken, Senbon, Makibishi. Each was listed along with a number amount.

Maka was quick to place a palm to the scroll and a moment later a kunai appeared under it in a puff of smoke. It was something Tsubaki had seen before, but never up close and never with the aid of the Byakugan. She regretted that she hadn’t activated it before Maka had summoned the kunai knife, something which she would need to remedy. Forming the hand seals of Horse, Tiger, Boar, Hare, Rat, Dog, Horse, Dog, Hare, Rat, Boar, Snake she willed her vision out of the confines of her eye sockets with a small burst of chakra. The veins along her temples bulged as the doujutsu became active, her eyes transformed from a crystal blue to a pure white.

“Again please, Sensei. I wish to observe the flow of your chakra as you perform the technique.”, she requested, still falling back on formality to ease the tension of being taught by her cousin. Maka seemed to sense Tsubaki’s tension, spying it in the set of her jaw and the way she tensed the area between her shoulder blades. It didn’t take the powers of the Byakugan for Maka to read her cousin.

“Of course, Lady Crane.”, mocked Maka in return, knowing that the jab would make Tsubaki settle as much as it would infuriate her. Using their past relationship to ease into the new one was an easy trick for the chuunin. Besides, it always brought a smile to her face to see her cousin squirm under her hated moniker. Squirm Lady Crane did, trying and failing to keep her face entirely neutral. The set of her jaw and the furrowing of her brow shifted ever so slightly, telegraphing the inferno that raged Internally against the jibe at her nose.

“Watch carefully, for I will first seal it back into the scroll before I unseal it.”, the chuunin continued, making the kunai knife disappear and then reappear in in a small puff of gray smoke each time. What was different this time was the view. To Tsubaki’s now expanded perception she could make out the formation of chakra welling in her cousin’s belly followed by its transference through the chakra pathways before washing over the kunai and onto the scroll where it concentrated down and formed the kanji for the kunai. Finally, the counting number for the kunai shifted up one. Than she watched it all in reverse. First the chakra was formed, but this time it was used to pull the kanji straight from the surface of the scroll, the handle of the kunai knife manifesting under Maka’s palm.

“I think I have it. Let me try.”, Tsubaki said while holding her hand out for the kunai knife. It would take a few attempts, but with the principle of the technique revealed before her Byakugan it was a certain thing. Within minutes she was able to place the kunai within the scroll and pull it back out again. What really seemed to irritate Maka was that the Kanji for Kunai had gotten prettier when Tsubaki performed the technique, embellished as if drawn with the stylus that hadn't been touched since the lesson began. It seemed Mariko’s advice about the calligraphy paraphernalia was right on the money.

[861 Words]

“Sealing small objects is the lowest form of sealing though, the simplest seals possible. Now we will move onto seal theory and the process of breaking seals.”, Maka grinned at her little cousin as she broke the news. “Not so good now, with your pretty kanji, are you!”, she thought, never taking a moment to consider how childish it was to be competing with an academy student as chuunin of the village. Maka rose, self assured as she raised up from her kneeling position onto the balls of her feet and then straightening to her full height. Tsubaki followed suit and it immediately became obvious why the cousins might have feuded at all. In addition to little things such as who had the nicer writing, Maka came up a full inch short on Tsubaki.

The little cousin regarded the older from her slight position of superior height with a grin to match Maka’s from before. As quickly as standing, the two had fallen back into their old roles fully. No more was this a relationship between teacher and student. Now this was a showdown between teenage girls, and the battleground was one upon which skill was only an equal part to beauty and poise. Invisible sparks of competition arced between them, felt instead of seen. In an effort to bring the conflict back into her favor, Maka showed Tsubaki over to a table where she had arranged a set of scrolls prior to their meeting.

“These, are several simple sealing formulas I’ve prepared in advance. Really, the easiest ones I could think of.”, Maka motioned to a scroll at the edge of the table before continuing, “You will notice how the seal is formed in rings with even numbers in each ring in this scroll while the one next to it is composed of odd numbers in the rings. The amount in each layer is determined logarithmically. In order for a seal to function correctly, you cannot mix layers of different logarithms. Doing that will disrupt the balance of the seal and interfere with the travel of chakra between the rings.” At this point she stopped a moment to pull over a set of scrolls with seals laid out in a square pattern.

“Each seal is composed using a certain pattern. Sometimes these will manifest as rings or squares, but not always. More advanced arrangements such a trigrams and pentagrams exist, but we won’t be bothering your pretty little head with those yet.”, Maka continued her lessons while firing metaphorical shots across Tsubaki’s bow. “Examine each of these carefully and not their patterns. Once you have determined the pattern, using the same technique as before to pull back the layers, working your way to the inside.”

Tsubaki looked over a scroll containing a concentric set of rings with kanji spaced out on each ring. Inside the rings was a single kanji followed by a ring with three kanji and one with five kanji. Drawing forth her own energies, she mixed them into chakra and sent them down into her fingertips as she brought them down onto the face of the scroll. Each finger spread to touch a single kanji on the outer ring, drawing it off the sheet as she lifted her fingers and came down once more with her thumb, index finger, and middle finger on the inner ring’s kanji. She drew them up as well before shifting from a three fingered tripod to having her palm flattened on the final kanji. When her hand withdrew the seal was gone, leaving the scroll a blank surface. All eyes in the room were on the blank scroll for a long uncomfortable moment. 

“All right, Smartypants. Do that again. I dare you.” And she did.

[861 + 624 = 1,485 Words]

“Well, you seemed to handle those trivial seals just fine.”, Maka said, trying to knock Tsubaki back down a peg or three from her astounding performance in breaking the seals placed before her. “I suppose if you know how to pull down seals you should know how to put them back. This last sealing technique i’m going to teach you is used for securing things from doors to scrolls. Anything you don’t want some pesky squirt getting into.” Competitive tension flared between them. Tsubaki turned her nose up at the distasteful thing Maka had implied she was.

“I suppose then you forgot all about teaching me that secret seal then”. Tsubaki said while examining a plain section of wall, as if she couldn’t be bothered to look at Maka when speaking to her. Of course, that only egged the older girl on more. “You are so cute when you get pouty!”, she squealed in the high tone one used for children and babies nearly exclusively. Tsubaki couldn’t help keep the heat from rising in her cheeks out of embarrassment. As much as she couldn’t hide beneath her facade of disinterest, she could give the silent treatment as good as anyone. And she did.

“We wouldn’t want whittle Tsubaki to miss her bedtime. Besides you aren’t ready for it yet, are you Tsubaki-chan.” More silence followed the break in Maka’s speaking. “Ugh, fine. You are no fun, you know that?”, Maka admonished as she turned her cousin back toward the table with a quick pull on her shoulder. “C’mon, we don’t have all night. I need you to concentrate. Just watch me and do like I do, okay?”

Through her still active Byakugan, which likely had something to do with her crankiness as it was tiring her out, Tsubaki watched the flow of chakra in her cousin. It welled up and traveled down to her index finger where it concentrated into a blaze of blue energy that she wouldn’t realize till later could be made out with the naked eye. She pressed the tip of her finger to a closed scroll and the blaze of energy spread out into a circle six inches in diameter with a single kanji in the center. A moment later the circle and kanji had faded down into muted tones from the brilliance of the original chakra, becoming invisible to the naked eye, but revealed before her more discerning eyes.

“Just think about it like a wax seal. Spread it over what you want kept shut and stamp your mark into the center and it's done. Now you give it a try.”, Maka advised, waiting for Tsubaki to make her attempt patiently. She could see the fatigue setting in on her little cousin. These lessons were expedited by the Byakugan letting her see what was happening under the surface, but also limited on it draining her small reserves of chakra.

Tsubaki took a scroll similar from the table, furling it shut. Hold it in one hand she willed the chakra up in her other opposite hand, concentrating it on her index finger. She pressed it onto the scroll where the leading end overlapped the paper beneath it and willed the chakra version of a wax seal to form. It took longer than it would have earlier in the night, but when she withdrew her finger there was a pretty little flower similar marked inside the six inch circle.

Maka smiled genuinely as she put her arm around Tusbaki’s shoulders. “C’mon brat, you have school early tomorrow, and we can’t have you going with circles under your eyes.”, she said while beginning to lead her off toward the families personal quarters.

“But what about the secret seal…”, Tsubaki asked, her heart no longer in it from exhaustion. The Byakugan faded from her eyes, returning them to their normal crystal blue and her temples to their regular smoothness.

“Some other time okay?”, Maka replied as she gave her cousin a playful shove through the now open door to her private quarters.

[Exit]
[861 + 624 + 673 = 2,158 Words]
[Training Generic Sealing Technique [E-Rank] 500 Words]
[Training Fuinjutsu Breaking [E-Rank] 500 Words]
[Training Fuinjutsu Lock [E-Rank] 500 Words]
[Progress towards Fuinjutsu Breaking [D-Rank] 600/1,000 Words]
[Claiming 10 Stat Points for 2,000 Words]