Graveyard Shift [Training; Open]

A dark shadow sifted through the quiet night and thick fog of Kirigakure, the footfalls of its sandals the only sound to escape, ending up consumed by the muffling mists surrounding it.

Kaane was still somewhat perplexed why he was up.  Perhaps it had just been such a stimulating day, working with his dad back at the funeral home and performing his duties as an academy student, that his body refused to shut off.  But he was here, walking towards the open field at the center of Kirigakure’s village park, to rectify that, humming softly as the yellow light of the street lamps illuminated his path.  

Specifically, he had a bit of training in mind to tire himself out.  He had been practicing the clone jutsu with his dad and his Chuunin teacher in class, but so far he had been failing miserably.  His dad had told him it was because he wasn’t molding his chakra correctly, but he was absolutely sure he was.  He was doing everything the manual he had received at the beginning of his education told him to!

Once again, he tried to perform the memorization exercise, preparing himself mentally as he took a pocket mirror out of his coat, reminding himself to flip the resulting image around in his mind.

The bridge of his nose was certainly somewhat thin, and his cheeks were still somewhat round with the cuteness of childhood.  His hair...it was unquestionably jet black, and it always seemed to have a bit of a right-facing tilt to it, even if it was being tossed about in the breezes that sometimes swept through the island.  His skin, pale as the moon the overly-protective mist rarely let him greet.  His ears were thankfully flat enough to be hidden by his hair...how he pitied the corpses that had found their way into his dad's mortuary with their elephantine auditory appendages that jutted out like sore thumbs...poor things looked like-

Not now, he mentally muttered, chiding himself into getting back on track.  His eyes, a light brown, easy enough.  His mouth, small, lips somewhat full.  And then there was the matter of his trenchcoat, the signature article of clothing he always wore; there was somewhat of a texture to it, a warm, fuzzy sort of look that he would have to emulate the best he could.  His black gloves possessed much of the same complexity, the slick, reflective, creased leather offering somewhat of a unique challenge to replicate.  His warm, woolen scarf, currently an adventurous, red plaid, was also a factor.  And then finally came his pants and black sandals, his pale toes the only instance of white breaking up the otherwise dark ensemble.  It was initially somewhat taxing to him, having to think of all of these things at once, yet he knew it was important to being a ninja in general.  Being observant, having a good memory and quick mind to utilize in combat situations...that was truly what the clone jutsu taught.  If he couldn't even be aware of himself, how could he possibly be aware of his surroundings, or an opponent?

For the time being, however, he was simply ready to put the simple technique into practice.  How did the seals go again...ah yes...Ram, Snake, Tiger!

With a beginner's unpracticed hand, he performed the three seals in succession, before affirming the technique's name aloud.  A puff of smoke later, and he turned to his right to inspect his handiwork.

"...Are you kidding?" he muttered as he looked over the hunchbacked, malformed, ethereal construct, staring into its sunken eyes, pitying how its face quietly protested its very existence.  "I know you don't want to be alive.  You don't even have to tell me."

Watching as the failed clone poofed out of existence, he looked downwards at his feet for some sort of answer to all this.  Perhaps it wasn't the knowledge of himself that he lacked; he had been trying to remember his own looks for the past week, and despite all of the time he spent looking at himself, it had not made a single difference.  Why had even taken that bloody photograph in the first place...

Photographs...his camera...wait.  Perhaps if he focused his chakra into his skin rather than having it simply burst out of him to his side, it would produce a better result.  Allow for it to sort of capture an image of his body's general shape, while filling in the blanks with his mental image of himself.  Just like his camera!  Well, except a camera that wrapped its lens around you like a skintight bodybag before taking a picture.

That would probably be an extraordinarily useless camera in most cases, come to think of it.  But not today.

Once again, he performed the seals, slower this time, as he spread out a small amount of chakra towards the surface of his skin throughout his body.  He could feel his tenketsu welling with the potential, slowly molding into a shell surrounding him before...

"Clone Jutsu!"

As suddenly as he had said those words and expelled his chakra off to his right side, an exact copy of himself, posture, clothing, hairstyle, everything stood holding the tiger seal just as he was.  Though it was nothing more than an unconscious illusion about as substantial as a genjutsu, it was still standing there as large as life itself.  And the smirk on both its and Kaane's faces betrayed his satisfaction.

"Finally!"

However, his work still felt...unfinished.  And he still felt unwaveringly awake.  His mind travelled back to thoughts of his father...he always used to do those exercises in the early hours of the morning...not quite taijutsu, but apparently still useful.  He called it...tai chi, or something along those lines.  Always said it was quite relaxing, limbered up the joints, improved one’s flexibility and agility while placing one in a state of tranquility.

Why not try it?

He began by taking a wide stance, bending his back forward and stretching his legs as far as they would go until the telltale burn of a good stretch wracked his tendons.  Holding it for about ten seconds, he would then attempt to do that weird turn that his dad always did to get standing back up straight.

He ended up falling on the top of his head instead, the wet grass sticking annoyingly to his face while his neck formed a tripod with his still-planted feet.

“Mmph…” he groaned before pushing himself back up the old-fashioned way.  Resolving to continue, he would then maneuver into a series of slow motion kicks, extending each of the natural stages of a forward facing snap kick slower and slower.  His balance felt wobbly at first, but it soon grew slightly easier to stand on one leg, extending the other as far up as it would go, then alternating.

Next came side kicks, doing much of the same for each leg.  It was slightly easier to hold himself up considering it was a more natural kicking stance than the previous, but it still took some getting used to.  Only the sounds of his controlled breathing and the rustling of his trench coat would signify his presence in the field now as he gradually returned to normal speed through both kick types.  Feeling confident, he would complete the series with a jumping roundhouse, leaping off his left foot and sweeping through the air with his right leg.  He would land somewhat off balance, his feet far too close together.  Yet with a little frantic arm-flailing, he would manage to hold himself standing straight.

Finally, he would throw in a little open palm punching for good measure.  Quite slowly, he would assume his wide stance, then punch into the air.  He would take a step forward each time he did so, rooting himself into the ground with all of the strength he could muster, stretching his fingers and wrists with each, slow thrust of his arms.  Center, high, low, left, right, he would use both hands to punch every conceivable way while stretching what he could at the same time.  Despite it looking quite amateurish from an observer’s perspective, Kaane could most definitely feel it working.  His body was beginning to feel quite loose, and his balance was slowly improving.  Of course he’d need far more sessions to maximize this technique’s effects, but it was definitely well worth trying it.

Rolling his neck gently, he yawned loudly before shaking himself back to reality a little.  He still felt somewhat awake...mm...he’d have to think of something else.

[WC 1443]

Training:

(OOC: Thanks ^^)

His mind found itself drifting towards the requirements for the Kiri Genin Exam.  Ultimately it should have been simple, especially with how hard he had been practicing.  But although he realized he had just successfully learned one of the requirements, the other was yet to be fulfilled.

It was another jutsu he had practiced but had failed to truly master: the Transformation Jutsu.

His gaze hardened and his ever-present smile dampened just at the thought.  The one thing that gave him even harder of a time than the clone jutsu once did.  Dammit all...

He breathed in quietly before losing himself to anger as he sometimes did when confronted with frustration.  He had already succeeded with the first jutsu, perhaps the train of success would keep on rolling?

Kaane rolled his shoulders a bit before searching at his feet, looking for a template of some sort that he thought he could manage to replicate.  He wasn't sure how he'd be able to though...he'd heard the long explanation from the Chuunin that supervised his class a million times over, and it still made little sense.  Even the teacher seemed to have little to no clue about the effective reasoning behind it...even if that little smirk he always had when looking his way suggested he was lying.  According to him, it was just...you sort of just became something.  Throw some chakra into yourself, take some form or another, and maintain it constantly with chakra control he once wasn't even sure was manageable for someone with as little experience as he.

And as with most things Kaane discovered were mysteries that couldn't (or perhaps wouldn't, in the teacher's case, considering how ornery he usually was) be solved, they only ended up ticking him off to no end.

"Maybe that's why I'm awake...all this chakra stuff on my mind," he said aloud to himself, rubbing the back of his neck as he spotted something in the distance.  Walking up to it, he smiled a bit as he picked up a large stick, a branch that had fallen from the tree just above it.  "A fine night to turn into a piece of wood," he joked with his natural smile having returned, tossing it a few times in his hands before really getting a good look at it.  It was a crooked branch, probably a yard or so long, and its roughness was obvious even through the slick leather gloves he was wearing.  It was of a dark wood as well, undoubtedly moistened to the core from the mists that pervaded the area.  

He laid it on the ground, exhaling as he took every aspect of the branch he had seen...every knob and crook, every piece of jutting bark, every  minute detail, and placed them as well as he could into his memory.  If he didn't have a perfect photographic memory now, he'd definitely have one after a few decades of doing this crap over and over.

Now for the seals: Dog, Boar, Ram, as he recalled.  Performing them with gusto, he held the final one as he stared directly at the wooden branch for what felt like ages.  His chakra molded within him, until he suddenly released it before he felt he was about to burst from the effort.  

A poof of smoke later, and he soon felt himself falling to the ground.  Everything felt right for a few seconds, in regards to actually taking the form of the branch.  He couldn't quite tell, being unable to look down at himself.  However, unfortunately, the slight vertigo from the freefall and the shock as he touched the ground immediately broke the jutsu he had cast upon himself.

Once again, his head somehow found itself buried in the grass.  Along with the rest of his immaculate trench coat, which was now probably temporarily ruined.

Still, he pulled himself back up, stretching out to cure the temporary paralysis he had incurred upon himself by temporarily becoming an inanimate object.  He could tell he transformed into something, and he definitely couldn't move a muscle once he had done so.  Even if he wasn't even close to being the branch he had wanted, he probably had succeeded in becoming one in general.  But the issue was in the technique's longevity; he had only been moved slightly, hit the ground with barely any force at all, and the entire transformation went out of whack.  The moment he touched the environment surrounding him, his ability had faltered.

Perhaps he had needed a new way of thinking about it; once again, he had rushed headlong into it without thinking of a strategy beforehand.  Thankfully, however, he had already thought of one from the jutsu he had previously mastered.

The bodybag camera technique would prove itself useful more than once, tonight.

Already knowing what to do, his hands flew through the small seal sequence before finally resting on the ram sign, upon which he concentrated his chakra in a shell around himself.  But instead of preparing to force it off of himself to create an immaterial clone, he brought the image of the branch to mind and molded his chakra like clay into its general shape around himself.  It felt like he was being squeezed by his own life force, until it was all released in a puff of smoke.

Once again, he could feel himself falling, but the shell of chakra surrounding himself was holding steadfast in preparation.  He hit the ground with a thud, but the jutsu still held.  The shell he was maintaining around himself was far more successful, this time around, being prepared to interact with the ground below.

Well, that is until the drain of chakra, both from holding this technique and the entire day's worth of training and work, started to get to him.

"Gyah!" he gasped as he once again found himself free of the jutsu with a final puff of haze surrounding him, leaving him breathing heavily.  He had held the technique for almost a minute that time.  While he would have to utilize it a lot longer, he surmised it had come down to stamina rather than any failing in his ability to transform.

He lay there for a few moments, regaining his strength as he stared up into a sky.

"This better pay off a million years from now."

WC = 1060

Training:

TWC: 2503

Gonna go ahead and claim 12 stats, and the Clone and Transformation Jutsus.

AND THEN UNTO THE GENIN EXAM