No School Like the Old School[P, Ren]

It was Jayce's first day at the ninja academy here at Kirigakure. Or rather, New Kirigakure. The uneasiness of obviously being the oldest student in the classroom was beginning to set in. Looking around it seemed there was no one in there older than twelve, whereas the Uzumaki was seventeen. Perhaps that would work to his advantage, perhaps not. Only time would tell for sure. What the boy did know, was that he most likely had a lot more knowledge pertaining to fuinjutsu and medical techniques than the others. Considering this academy was meant to teach the basics of being a shinobi, though, he didn't really count that as a strength.

He was sitting at his desk now, the closest one to the window on the left hand side of the room in the front row. The sound of Kirigaure's nearly constant rainfall clattered against the glass. Jayce was leaning his head on his left hand, twirling a pencil between the fingers with his right, and watching the door for the teacher.

Ren walked into the class room, A calm smile on his face as he turned to look at the class. 
"Welcome to your first, class in this institution. Now you all passed the entrance exam so I assume you have the basic knowledge required to take these classes, so rather than prattle on I'll get right down to business. Who here can tell me what chakra is?" Ren asked, leaning into the desk that sat at the front of the class room as he looked around the class room, analyzing how the students reacted to being thrown right into the deep end.

The teacher walked in just then, welcoming the students before going straight into the lesson. The Uzumaki leaned back in his chair now, still twirling the pencil between his fingers, but no longer resting his head on his hand. Already he had asked a question, the other student's seemed to be overly surprised by that fact, the low sounding chatter among them could be taken as confusion. Perhaps they didn't know the answer, perhaps they were just truly taken aback by the sudden topic.

Jayce didn't hesitate though. He raised his hand in a calm, purposeful manner, hoping to be called on. Seeing as his was the only one raised, that was the most probably outcome anyway. Assuming the teacher had called on him to answer, he would place the pencil on his desk and stand behind it, beginning to speak.

"Chakra is the manifestation of one's Physical and Spiritual energies. Through various ways of application, the most common being hand seals, chakra can be used in a multitude of ways that would otherwise be impossible. Some of these include being able to walk on water and other surfaces, as well as being able to perform any jutsu. Chakra is not normally visible, but can be sensed by an adequate shinobi. Every person's chakra is unique, giving them their own chakra signature that can be recognized by those whom have sensing abilities."

When he was finished, Jayce would return to his seated position, picking up the pencil once more and paying close attention to the teacher.

Ren sighed a little when none of the students responded to his question immediately, they were all surprised that the lesson had started so suddenly; well all except for one. "All right, at least someone is clued in. You at the back there, your name and answer go." Ren said, waiting for the boy's reply. Assuming he gave his name and then answered in the same way he otherwise would have Ren would smile and give him a nod. "Very good, Its good to see that someone here knows what there talking about, I would give you a nine out of ten; but you certainly know everything I would expect of an accademy student. Now you all passed the entrance exam, so you know at the very least how to manifest your chakra primitively; however by the end of your stay here I expect you all to know it intimately." Ren gave the class a stern but not unpleasant stare as he looked around at them. "Now then, Jayce mentioned it was possible to walk on water using chakra, but can anyone explain how that is possible?" Ren asked looking around the room. If the same boy as last time put his hand up before anyone else Ren would pointedly sigh and say "Anyone else?" Either way eventually one boy at the front of the class, his long black hair tucked back behind his wide rimed glasses, lifted his hand up. "Yes at the front" Ren would say, nodding at the boy. "Your name child?" Ren asked, waiting for a reply.

"Kishimoto sir, to walk on water a person has to be emitting a constant stream of chakra from the soles of the their feet, that allows them to walk on water" The boy let out a sigh and grinned at his class mates before Ren replied "Three out of Ten, you have the idea right but you don't understand the finer details Kishimoto. You are correct that you need to emit chakra from your feet, but its not as simple as pouring your chakra out en mass. In order to stand on water you will find that you need to carefully control the amount of chakra you are releasing from your feet at such a rate that it allows you to use the pressure of the water colliding with your chakra to stand atop the water, without releasing so much chakra that you destroy the surface tension of the water. You will no doubt all find it rather difficult to succeed at, at first; and even when you do learn to maintain the right levels of chakra you must constantly be ready to change those levels in response to changes and disturbances in the water. It's not an easy thing to learn, but life as a ninja of Kirigakure no sato is not easy. It is rough, harsh, and challenging; however we do this job all the same so that our families and friends may be safe. If you are not ready to commit yourself to such a goal then I suggest you leave now." Ren said, pausing to watch for everyones reactions once again, and to give people time to leave, No one did of course 'Good, at least they all have a strong will, I can work with this' Ren thought to himself as he continued his lecture.

"Now, could someone please explain hand seals to the class?" Ren would ask, hoping for a reply from a student.

The teacher responded pleasantly to Jayce's answer, giving him a nine out of ten and mentioning that he knew all that the instructor had expected of an academy student. 'Maybe my experience learning from mom and dad will help me here' the boy thought to himself as he listened to what was expected of them. They were supposed to know their chakra systems intimately by the end of their stay at the academy. Of course, Jayce being the person that he was, decided immediately that he wanted to get a leg up. He wouldn't stand for being the oldest academy student here and not having more skills and knowledge than the others. 

Since the topic of the day seemed to be centered around chakra, he decided he might as well start with that. He let half of his attention continue to focus on the lesson in front of him, while the other half was busy trying to work with his own chakra. Specifically being able to sense the different chakra signatures of others, just as he had mentioned earlier was possible. The red haired teenager knew his own chakra pretty intimately from his studies with his parents, but he had never put it into actual application before. He happened to be pretty quick on the uptake though, so it couldn't hurt to give it a shot. 

Meanwhile, Jayce's new favorite teacher had moved on to focus in on the art of walking on water. They had asked the class if anyone had known how this process was done. The Uzumaki knew the answer and had raised his hand just as before, prompting a pointed sigh as the white haired ninja asked for someone new to answer the question. One of the students at the front of the classroom, Kishimoto he was called apparently, had actually raised his hand to answer this time. Jayce took note that the rest of his classmates seemed to have finally caught on that the lesson had begun and were now starting to be more interactive. 

The boy's answer forced a slight eye roll out of the seventeen year old. 'What a simplistic explanation. He had to have known that it wouldn't be sufficient, right?' he thought to himself as his new sensei gave the child a mere three out of ten, going on to explain the specifics of the ability. Requiring precise chakra control in order to maintain one's stability over the water was not something that Jayce expected academy students to be able to do, though, so he guessed that it would make sense not to have been able to give a better explanation. 

While this was going on, the boy had managed to somehow switch his chakra to what he deemed to be 'sensory mode', now picking up differing levels of chakra from all around him. It was as if a flood of energy he couldn't control was overwhelming his mind. One was much brighter and larger than the others, emanating from the front of the classroom; he assumed it was coming from the Kirigakure shinobi teaching the lesson. It was still mixed in with all the others though, which was an issue. Jayce focused on trying to separate the individual signatures one at a time as the lesson continued.

When he heard the mention of leaving if they had found this to be too challenging, Jayce simply grinned, knowing that he would never do so; he was interested to see if any of the others were spineless enough to take up the offer though. No one had. Continuing on with the lesson, hand seals seemed to be the next point of interest. Once again his hand raised without hesitation, but at the same time a girl who looked to be only a year or two younger than he was had raised her hand as well. Jayce hadn't noticed the girl before, but he was impressed at how calm and collected she seemed to be, knowing that Kishimoto had been graded so harshly on his own answer. Which of the two would be chosen to speak this time?

Ren smiled in surprise as he saw two people raise their hand to his question, fortunately one of them was the boy who'd so far raised his hand to all of Ren's questions. 'Heh, its good that your eager kid but maybe tone it down a little' he thought to himself before nodding to the girl that had raised her hand. "I'm sure you know the drill by now" Ren said to the girl as he awaited her response. "Well sir, you see... Hand seals are a method of chakra control, by forming a seal we are able to shape our chakra and perform a technique; without performing the handseals your chakra is too eratic to control and you wont be able to perform the jutsu." 

Ren nodded at the girl. "Good, five out of ten." the girl breathed out a sigh she'd no doubt not even been aware she was holding, although whether it was a sigh of relief or disappointment ren was unsure of. "Hand seals are indeed a way of helping to control ones chakra; they are used to perform many ninjutsu, genjutsu, or other techniques that involve fine chakra control..." The girl that had answered the question nodded her head along with his words. "However whilst hand signs help us to shape our chakra, they are a crutch, a learning tool, not a necessity. They help us to release the exact amount of of chakra necessary to cast a technique, but the same thing can be achieved with practice and precise chakra control. In fact being a mental crutch its even possible to use something other than hand seals to shape your chakra if you devote enough time and practice to it." Ren said looking at the class before his eyes honed in on someone who would demonstrate for the next part of his speech. "Now then Jayce, you seem to know what we've been talking about, perhaps you would care to come up the front of the class and make an attempt at performing the clone technique" Ren would say, slowly forming the hand seals as he spoke before a copy of himself appeared next to him. Ren didn't expect the boy to succeed of course, but he was curious how much this boy really knew.

The boy's hand went back down, deciding to just continue twirling the pencil between his fingers. It looked like the teacher had heard enough from Jayce's first answer to assume the boy knew more than the other students and wanted to give each of them a chance to answer as well. She spoke about how hand seals are a form of chakra control, allowing shinobi to perform techniques that they would otherwise be unable to do. For the most part, this fit with what Jayce knew to be true. However he was sure that his parents were able to perform jutsu without the use of hand seals that other ninja needed to use the seals for. 

His queried thought was answered immediately by the instructor's response. The girl had been given a five out of ten for her answer, which was better than what Kishimoto had received. The white haired Kirigakure shinobi went on to explain that hand seals were merely a crutch to help ninja more accurately infuse the perfect amount of chakra needed to perform techniques, but not a necessity to do so. 'So I was right after all.' the red haired boy thought to himself, a small smirk appearing on his face at the thought. Then, however, he was informed of something that he actually didn't know. There were ways of using other mental crutches the same way that hand seals were used if one trained hard enough to do so. 'Interesting. That might be something I'll want to look into.'

While this was going on, Jayce had managed to separate several of the mushed together chakra signatures he had felt into individual masses. Though he couldn't really call them masses anymore. They seemed so much larger when they were all condensed and unorganized, but in reality they were overly minuscule in stature. It was only because of the multitude of chakra signatures combined into one that it had been overwhelming at all. The downside to this was Jayce could now see just how overwhelming their teacher's chakra actually was. That one hadn't diminished at all. It was like a mountain compared to the students' who would be looked at as insects.

The teacher finished the explanation and asked the Uzumaki to come down to the front of the class and attempt to perform the clone technique. The hand seals for the technique were demonstrated along with the jutsu itself as an exact replica of their instructor appeared in the front of the room. The boy stood up now, remembering the seals that had just been used and all of his experience and knowledge in molding chakra. He made his way down to the front of the class, neither rushing nor taking his time to do so. He took up a position to the immediate left of the shinobi, the opposite side of where the clone was, and turned to face the class.

He looked around at the class now, taking note of each one of the student's face's and putting them together with the individual chakra signatures he was sensing. It made it easier for him to differentiate. It was a good thing that Jayce was especially adept at multitasking, because while he was doing this he was also concentrating on infusing his own chakra and keeping a mental image of himself held at the ready in order to use the clone technique requested of him. Pointedly, he formed the three seals necessary in order. Ram-Snake-Tiger. 

Quiet that followed from his classmates was astounding. He had managed to create an exact replica of himself that was now standing to his immediate left. The Uzumaki demonstrated the clone's abilities by raising first his right, then his left arms in succession before allowing the technique to dispel and the clone to vanish. It was clear none of the other students had thought he would succeed. In response to the now slightly bitter expressions on several of the student's faces, Jayce simply smiled a convincingly 'normal' smile back at them. 

"Is that all, sensei?" he asked respectfully after turning to face the teacher.

TWC: 1,797

Ren watched as the boy walked down to the front of the class, a confident smile on his face and his an arrogant spring in his step. 'Oh great, another kid who think he's hot shit, lets hope he doesn't end up like the last one' Ren thought, thinking back to the weird jashinist child who'd been a danger to himself and others; Ren blinked, refocusing on the boy who had made his way down to the front of the class and stood there, staring at the face's of the children watching him, his back turned to Ren. 'Stage fright, huh I would have expected more from him considering how confident he looked a moment ago' Ren thought, just before the boy lifted his hands together. Ren activated his minds eye, closely monitoring the boy's chakra as the child performed the correct hand seals for the clone technique. 'He has the order of seals right, but his fingers are a little off with some of the shapes'. All the same Ren could sense the boy's chakra forming into the correct shapes, for such a basic jutsu the childs hand seals were more than enough, although Ren made a mental note to talk to him about it later.

A few moments later a puff of smoke was all it took for a copy of the boy to appear next to him, flexing his arms and raising them in the air in a expression of triumph. 'Very good Jayce, but don't get too cocky there, your Snake hand sign was a little off there' Ren said, patting the boy on the back before gesturing for the boy to make his way back to his seat. Once the boy had sat back down Ren would continue speaking "Now Jayce there is certainly a quick study, but he still has a way to go, as for the rest of you I expect you all to be able to perform at least a rudimentary form of that technique by the end of the week. Now moving on, who understands what the role of a shinobi is?" Ren asked, no doubt the sudden change in topic would seem abrupt to many of the students, but Ren was curious to see who could pick where he was going with this topic.

Jayce was a little irritated that the instructor had pointed out such a minor flaw in his otherwise flawless performance of the clone technique, but he didn't allow it to show as he calmly walked back to his desk and sat down. He picked the pencil up in his right hand again and began twirling it between his fingers as he had been doing earlier. 

The next question caught the red haired youth by surprise for the first time during the lesson so far. He tried to think about it from different angles, but couldn't seem to connect the dots as to where the lesson was headed. What did the fundamentals of chakra, its uses and the reasoning for hand seals have to do with the role of a shinobi? Of course it had everything to do with BEING a shinobi, but what about the role of one? For the first time that day, Jayce was too preoccupied with his thoughts to put his hand up with an answer to the question. He had still allowed his newly found sensory abilities to stay alert though, now running them on auto pilot.

TWC: 1,988

For the first time The red headed boy hadn't put his hand up to immediately answer the question; Ren smiled internally; Not so much taking pleasure in the boy's inability to answer the question as he was glad that the boy knew both the value of answering a question, as well as the value of knowing when you need to let someone else speak. One person; a white haired girl with glasses and a pair of white pupil-less eyes put her hand up, Ren nodded at the girl "Name and answer dear, now go ahead" Ren said smiling as he listened to her reply. "Hikari Sumimoto sir. To be a Shinobi means to be strong, to fight for your village" The girl said with that innocent arrogance that only young children can manage. Still smiling Ren shook his head "one out of ten; your not wrong, but that is only a small part of what it means to be a Shinobi of the hidden mist; now then does anyone else have any ideas?" Ren would say, looking around the classroom with a gentle smile as he searched for the next person to raise their hand